Ben's Chicago GT 2000 Report
05/15/2000

Composition
Although I had registered to play my Space Marines, by the time I came off the waiting list and actually got into the GT, I decided to try my new Ork army. Click here to view the army list I eventually went with, as well as a few pics of my army.

I spent a long time obsessed over the Composition Score, agonizing over my army list. In the end I gave up worrying and just went with what I felt was a strong theme, but more importantly, an army I enjoyed playing. I have to confess to a bit of tweaking. At one point my army list weighed in at 39% troops, 35% fast attack. I pushed some points out of HQ to get it to a nice round 40% troops, 35% fast attack.

I was VERY happy with my composition score of 15/20. I think my army list helped a bit-- I went all out with full-color pics of the army and a somewhat professional layout with help from my old friends at Expert Gamer.

Painting
After innumerable hours slaving over my miniatures, looking for imperfections on the old models and perfecting the new ones, rebasing everything, I basically just gave up. I decided that the amount of work you have to put in to raise your score from a 12 to a 15, 20, or even higher, was just not worth it. I know my limitations-- I'm just not that good a painter.

I ended up with a 12 score-- exactly what I was expecting, and I'm satisfied with it-- but I'll definitely have more to say on this later.

GAME ONE: Dawn Assault
This was basically a Cleanse mission with the first turn fought in Night Fighting conditions. My opponent was Chad Camp, playing a Chaos Army. He had a Nurgle Lord on a bike, a Predator, a dread with twin Heavy Bolters, a dread with twin autocannon, a squad of Plague Marines, and a smattering of standard Chaos marines in Rhinos. A nice, respectable mobile infantry force. I thought his Marines were painted pretty good but his Rhinos looked a bit unfinished.

We diced off for placing scenery and I started by dropping a big rock crag right in the center of the table-- more just as a reference point than anything else, but it was actually wide enough to hide behind pretty good. Chad chose sides first but I got to deploy first.

I hate the setup rules for Cleanse. I think whoever sets up first has a HUGE advantage, forcing his opponent back 18" into his own deployment zone. The player who sets up first has a staging point mere inches away from every other quadrant. Basically I feel like, given players of equal skill (and by all appearances Chad was a good player) that this one single die roll-- first placement-- basically decides the game.

I held my own table quarter with Waaarghboom's big squad of burna boyz. The two mobs of grots skipped across into the two adjacent quarters, completely unmolested for the whole game. Of course this was because the heavy hitters in my army-- three Kanz, the Warboss, and two mobs of trukk boyz with Mega Armor Nobz-- were crawling all over him in no time. The tankbustas sniped at vehicles and the buggies sniped at Marines.

I was quite scared of his two dreads, so I avoided them with my Ork leaders and used my superior mobility to keep away. The Kanz engaged one dread and tied it up for the whole game. The Warboss and the trukk mobs spent a couple of turns shooting at the other one until we successfully blew off the close combat weapon, then moved in for the kill. Bugsnak took out the dread and a Mega Armor Nob got REAL lucky and killed his commander-- his commander either missed or failed to wound the Nob, and the power klaw made short work of him.

I won this game (12), killed his HQ (+1), and had units in his deployment zone at the end of the game (+1). I didn't get the +1 for killing his most expensive unit-- that was his plague marines, and I don't think I even bothered trying to kill ANY of them all game! Too tough; I know from experience.

My army on display at the end of Game One.

After the first game we were instructed to leave our armies set up for inspection. Since this was my first GT I was very surprised by this. I guess I was expecting some sort of separate judging session. I certainly wasn't expecting to leave my whole army unattended in the hall for over an hour-- normally I border on paranoid when it comes to my collection. I certainly would never leave my stuff unattended at a store tournament. But you know what? Nobody messed with anything. A great group of players, a very honorable community. I came to think nothing of leaving my miniatures sitting out after each game. Anyhow, the picture above shows what all 1700 points looked like laid out for the judges. My grot movement trays doubled as a display piece to buttress my "junkyard" theme. They were covered in skrap, and some of them had chain-link fences with signs like "Waaarghboom's Kustom Chop Shop;" "Beware of Squig" and "Good Skrap-- Guaranteed!" Hopefully I lived up to that guarantee for all my opponents...

GAME TWO: Into the Eye of Chaos
I had two things going against me in this battle. First off, it was a straight VP game. I admit it: I am terrible at this kind of game. I am much more comfortable committing my troops to tangible objectives like table quarters, and casualties be damned! The other disadvantage was the terrain itself. Granted, it was a beautifully constructed table, but I would have liked to have a little more control over my environment. Jason chose table sides first and chose the higher ground that was carved full of trenches. I got the other side which basically had a lot of crags to hide behind. A huge river of sludge ran down the middle and I decided (in my first stupid move of the day) that, golly, it really looked impassible to me.

Jason brought his custom marine chapter, the Diamondbacks, painted in a green and black scheme. He had a Whirlwind, 2 Dreadnoughts, 3 speeders, 2 attack bikes, 2 Razorbacks and a Rhino (with squads therein), and a juiced up commander with jump pack. Needless to say, the impassible terrain was of little consequence to either the attacking or defending prongs of his army.

The game used a couple of special rules. First of all it was Night Fight, and this saved my bacon on a few occasions. Second of all, there was a rule in effect that let you teleport any one model or squad that you could fit onto the Ordnance template. You just nominated a unit, nominated a target spot, then used Deep Strike to land on that spot. You could do this once at the start of each turn.

Stupid mistake #2 for me. I panicked when I saw the Whirlwind. I'm an Ork player, I can't help it. I teleported Waaarghboom's Burna Boyz over behind it, lit it up with 5 burnaz, and carved it up in no time flat. Of course, with five burnaz running around in the backfield of his vehicle heavy army, Jason decided to turn around and unleash holy hell on poor Waaarghboom. So much for that little experiment.

Jason parked two Razorbacks at the end of the two bridges that crossed onto his side, further stalling my advance. He ended up killing enough of my stuff that I felt, in the last turn, that I was losing horribly. In a desperate bid to catch up, I teleported Bugsnak and the smaller burna boyz mob right into the middle of his army. We managed to kill a typhoon, but that was it. In return I lost everybody in that squad. Stupid mistake #3.

Now we go to add up victory points for mobs destroyed. As it turns out, Jason only has a lead of about 250 points on me when it is all said in done. At about the same time as I realized that I basically blew an easy draw game, I ALSO realized I had forgotten to deploy MY ENTIRE SQUADRON OF BUGGIES. Stupid mistake #4. Never even noticed them missing for the whole game. But they sure would have been nice to shoot down those speeders with... Aaaaaargh! A measly 6-point Loss for my battle score.

I needed this loss. I was just coming off my first win at a GT and feeling invincible. Reality check. I was also pretty intimidated by Jason the moment I saw his DakkaDakka button proudly pinned on his chest. Despite his protests that he was basically just a "bench warmer" for DakkaDakka I knew he would be a tough opponent. He was, and his record throughout the rest of the tournament proved it. He was also a great sport, and his battle gave me the first inklings of just one of my epiphanies over the weekend: The best players are great sports. They don't need to whine and needle to win; if they're not confident that they're going to win, they're at least confident that it doesn't matter! The cream will rise to the top...

GAME THREE: Homing Beacons
My opponent for this battle was Steve Groom. I don't recall what his record was going into this game but I got the impression he'd had a rough time of it so far-- and this battle unfortunately wasn't about to break his bad streak. The mission was Homing Beacons-- each player had to choose one basic Troops unit-- of at least 5 models-- to carry their Homing Beacon, and the opponent got an extra 200 VP if they killed that squad.

Steve had a VERY nicely painted Blood Angels army-- one of the best I've seen. Most BA armies have a hard time pulling off the color scheme without looking cartoony but his hit the mark just perfect. He had three 5-man Tac squads, a 5-man Assault Squad, a Librarian on a bike leading two attack bikes; and a super nasty Command Squad with Techmarine, Apothecary, the works. You can tell from the list above how nasty "the works" was and Steve confessed to me that over half the points in his army was invested in HQ points. Ouch. He made a pretty good roll for his Death Company and ended up with 5 men succumbing to the rage-- in fact he almost didn't have a full 5-man squad left to carry his beacon!

The deployment zones were 16" deep on this one and with the exception of his beacon squad he was pretty much right on the line-- like a bunch of angry linebackers roaring to go. No surprises there. Contrary to my usual setup-- where my grots are well out of the way of my boyz-- this time I actually set them up in two long screens. Grots in front of burna boyz,  and my killer kanz close behind them to stick close to Waaarghboom and his toolbox. My Rhino held the left flank, backed up by the buggies for a little dakkadakka; and my trukk boyz went down on the right flank.

Steve got the first turn and came on like a bat out of hell. The command squad, the librarian and bikes, and the death company were on me immediately. The grots got assaulted in the first turn and wiped out, then he swept into the Orks in the second rank. The orks, unfortunately, he found a little more resilient. They tied him up long enough for the kanz to get involved and it was all downhill from there. He only had one power fist in his army-- a Vet. Sgt. who had gone to the Death Company-- and he was busy with Tankbustas. It took just a few turns for the kanz to wipe out over 750 points worth of marines. The whole battle pretty much took place in my deployment zone and although he killed off all the Tankbustas, Grots, and all of Waaarghboom's squad, it didn't matter much.

You can tell from Steve's post-battle picture up there he wasn't too happy with the results. "Another good argument for Voluntary Fallback," was his opinion. He was still a good sport about it and not at all upset with me personally-- after all, I was only defending myself! This was the first battle where the Kanz really, really proved their worth. This ended up as a full 15-point win for me.

GAME FOUR: Escalating Scouting Engagement (bonus troops in effect!)
Matthew Weeks' Space Wolves were the best painted army I had played so far. He had a Wolf Lord, Techmarine, Venerable Dread, five Scouts, five Blood Claws bikes, two Blood Claws squads in Rhinos, and a Grey Hunters squad in a Razorback. This mission had a 12" deployment zone on your long edge, but you only got to deploy one squad of Troops and any Infiltrators you might have-- everything else came in Reserves on a random table edge! Matthew elected to infiltrate with his Wolf Scouts so that he could start the game with more guys on the table. Matthew also elected to start with a Blood Claws squad (in Rhino). I deployed my Kommandos in his deployment zone, way over on the left edge; and Waaarghboom's burnaz were my choice for starting Troops unit. They went down way over on my right hand edge.

The first turn took all of 30 seconds to play-- neither of us was in range, but his Rhino came at me pretty fast down the right side. Turn two, things got ugly real fast. Over on the left side, my Flash Gitz and Burna Boyz came in. Dok Smiley also walked on, acting as medic for the Flash Gitz. Also appearing was Bugsnak, Stiffkrank's trukkers, the tankbustas, and my Killer Kanz-- ALL on the right hand edge! They nonchalantly rolled onto the table and busted up his Rhino. Matthew deployed his survivors behind the wreck but was still in charge range. I made a bit of a mistake here and started shooting at them with everything I had nearby-- dakkadakkadakka!!!-- and ended up killing enough boyz to remove the ones within charge range! There was a great outcry of DOH! and much smacking of the forehead. I was looking at some nasty retaliation to come.

On his turn Matthew got his Razorback, Dread, and Bikes on board. The Razorback pulled on from the right hand edge but was basically in my deployment zone and right behind my Rhino. His Dread and his bikes came on from his own table edge. As it turns out, since most of my forces were strung out all the way down the right hand side, I was pinched between two of his forces. Well, as much as 30-odd orks, a Warboss, and three Killer Kanz can be "pinched" by a dozen marines...

Witness Matthew's excellent painting skills...

Most of the battle ended up being fought on the right hand side. Over on the left, my Kommandos just sat there, while my Flash Gitz walked forward and put some dakka into whoever they could see-- mostly scouts. The Wolves actually did pretty good over there on the right, killing off the whole trukk boyz mob, and most of the tankbustas. He wisely avoided Bugsnak and the Kanz. Bugsnak was desperately fighting his way through the marines to the Venerable dread-- who had foolishly replaced his close combat weapon with a missile launcher. Bugsnak fears nothing that can't instant kill him! The kanz were chasing the bikes around but, obviously, having a hard time catching them. Waaarghboom ended up turning back to my deployment zone with his burnaz to deal with the Razorback, but the Grey Hunters ended up killing his whole mob.

Right about turn four, as I'm realizing that I'm losing the battle, Matthew says, "There's no way I can win." I said, "What do you mean? The trukk boyz were worth 197, those burna boyz over 170, the tankbustas about the same..."

"Dude, this is a table quarters mission."

Oops. Missed that little detail. My Flash Gitz, Kommandos, Grotznadz' boyz, Grots-- they were all holding table quarters. Matthew hadn't even seen his last squad yet-- and his Wolf Lord was with them. In the end, they appeared briefly for the last turn, but couldn't make a dent in all the forces I had spread out over the board. I won this game, but it was hard fought. Matthew wasn't giving up any extra points, so it was just a 12-point victory.

Saturday Night
I returned to my room after the pub quiz, exhausted but unable to sleep. I was mulling over my experience so far. Obviously I was pretty pumped about my battle record. I was a little upset that I had seen nothing but Space Marine players all day (Chaos, codex, Blood Angel, and Space Wolves) but by the time I woke up the next morning, I decided it was probably for the best. "Give me more marines!" I thought. At least I knew how to handle them by this point. I certainly didn't want to face Imperial Guard with all their Ordnance, or Eldar with their Wraithlords. (Or Necrons, on account of the god-awful ucking-fugly things are an embarassment to the hobby.) I had heard through the grapevine that there were a lot of two- and three- wraithlord armies out there. I was also praying for more table quarters missions. It's tough to contain the Orks.

GAME FIVE: Sweep and Secure
My opponent for this battle was Daniel Wideman and his Eldar. The mission was Sweep and Secure, which was basically just Cleanse with the added twist that the first unit completely wiped out was allowed to return to the board in the next turn. Daniel's army consisted of a Farseer, who accompanied nine Banshees and their Exarch in a Wave Serpent; a Fire Prism; two Vipers; three squads of Rangers; two squads of Defenders; a Storm squad in Wave Serpent, and a battery of Shadow Weavers. Did I forget to mention the ubiquitous Wraithlord? Actually I high-fived Daniel when I found out he only had ONE wraithlord. I was also pleased to see the Shadow Weavers which I had never seen deployed before. Daniel assured me they were devastating against the Orks he faced before, and he was indeed an excellent guess at ranges.

Daniel's Wraithlord was placed to protect the front of his army-- if I was going to get to them, it was going to be through that Wraithlord. The only problem was, I knew I couldn't take it down. The kanz were my best bet so I started by moving them as fast as I could right towards him. The day before Daniel had actually lost his Wraithlord to a trio of kanz, so they took fire from just about everything he had. I just wanted to get them close enough to draw the Wraithlord towards them. If he bit, I thought they had a fair chance of at least tying it up long enough for my trukks to squeak by so my boyz could start pounding on the panzees. My warboss and a trukk mob shot right across the table towards Daniel, running level with his deployment zone and just out of reach of his Wraithlord.

I backed up this strategy with another obvious ploy, moving my grots across the line to claim the neutral table quarters. They were huge mobs, so I figured he would pound them pretty good with his Shadow Weavers, but he seemed much more interested in my tankbustas. (Anything that wasn't shooting kanz was shooting at them.)

In his second turn Daniel moved his tanks into the neutral quarters. The banshees headed over to deal with the grots/tankbustas, while the Fire Prism and a Viper moved over to handle the trukk boyz. His wraithlord made a bee-line for my warboss in his Rhino. In the first of what would become many miserable turns of bad luck for Daniel, he couldn't stop either vehicle.

In my next turn, the Warboss turned about and headed to the opposite table quarter, away from the Wraithlord and back towards the banshees, but didn't quite make it there. Back across the board Stiffkrank and his boyz hopped out of their trukk; their lone burna stunned the Viper, so Stiffkrank charged the Fire Prism, hit it, and took it down! Hoowah!

Now I took my kanz and steered them away from the wraithlord, heading right for the meat of Daniel's deployment area: a big wooded area where he had both squads of Defenders and two squads of rangers.  A quick look at the kanz, bristling with skorchas and headed for his tightly packed units, decided the matter of the Wraithlord: he turned around and committed himself to stopping the kanz' advance. His wraithlord spent two or three turns pounding on the kanz and although he destroyed one and crippled the other two beyond any usefulness, they fought back and tied him up for the rest of the game.

Bugsnak, Grotznadz, and their burna boyz hopped out of the Rhino close enough to assault the Banshees in their Wave Serpent. The burnaz could do no better than to stun the Wave Serpent during shooting, so Bugsnak waded in and managed to take it down with his klaw. Unfortunately, Daniel's turn was up next, so he would be able to shoot me up before assaulting. He deployed from the wreck so that the Exarch and the Farseer both were ready to assault Bugsnak personally. Bugsnak took out the Farseer, but the banshees killed off pretty much the whole squad and what was left of the mob was forced to flee. The banshees didn't catch them-- they ran into the grots instead-- but I was never able to regroup. Bugsnak was fleeing like a little girl...

Back over in the other neutral table quarter-- soundly held by my big mob of grots-- Stiffkrank's mob was shot to pieces by the Storm Squad who had cruised over to buttress that flank. But the survivors managed to kill off all the guardians, mount up, and head into Daniel's deployment zone. Unfortunately, the destroyed Storm Squad came right back and occupied the now vacant quarter. I had to move in Klutcher's mob to destroy them a second time. Daniel spent his last turn shooting the crud out of Stiffkrank's mob so that I would not be able to claim any extra points for having units in his deployment zone. He managed to destroy the trukk and kill the mob down to the last man, but in the end I was still able to get my buggies over there for that point anyway.

The final result was a win for me, with 14 points. I think Daniel ended up with an 8-point loss, counting points for wiping out my most expensive unit and the "giant killer" bonus he got because of my winning record. I was 4W 1L now and SUPER pumped going into the next round!

GAME SIX: Across Enemy Lines
I was not happy to discover that my opponent for this battle was Mark Henry, who I had heard was a veteran (past champion?) of many GT's. He had an "official sponsor" for crying out loud. I was basically shaking in my boots. I knew Mark was a pro when he offered me a soda from his cooler. I quite cynically thought, "Oh, great, plugging for the sportsmanship points..." We set up terrain. I placed a big hill in the center of the table, knowing I would want a lot of terrain to block line of sight as I scooted across the table-- leaving my slower stuff to defend my own deployment zone. At least, that was the plan. Mark took another hill and, rather than add more terrain, placed it on TOP of my hill. I really, really knew I was screwed at this point. I was so outclassed.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The object of the mission here was to have the most squads of 5 or more models in the opponent's deployment zone at the end of the game. Mark's Ultramarine army was as follows: a cheap commander, five Terminators, a Dreadnought, five Tac squads of marines at 5-men each-- divided into "battle formation" so that he had a heavy OR a special in each squad-- with three transports (two Rhinos, one Razorback), a landspeeder Typhoon, a squadron of three speeders with Heavy Bolters, a five-man assault squad, and a five man Dev squad with 3 heavy bolters. It seemed like a HUGE force for marines. They were painted BEAUTIFULLY. His Rhinos had working headlights, tail-lights, and searchlights. His paint job was strictly codex. Just perfect down to the last detail.

Now it may seem from my lead in paragraph that this game was terrible. It wasn't. This game was a gift from the gods. I was put there to learn from a true master. Even though he had five man squads-- which made him very vulnerable to the simple tactic of just killing a guy from each squad-- Mark never stopped coming. Even his guys on foot-- heavy weapons or not-- were heading for the end zone. And he whipped me like a schoolgirl every step of the way-- first he took out my transports, and where he could he concentrated on whittling down my squad sizes. He beat the crap out of me in hand to hand. The overwhelming feeling that I had no chance was quickly replaced with the certainty that I had no chance.

But I have to say, Mark was a great sport. When I forgot to roll an armor save, he was there to remind me. When I was about to roll for an important shot, he was wishing me luck. When I used a bit of cheesy placement to get a clean shot at his razorback, he didn't care. Was he plugging for good sportsmanship? Who cares! It WAS good sportsmanship. The fact that I was going to rate him on it later didn't detract from the fact that he was making sure I was having a good time.

Top of the fourth turn, we're in my assault phase. Now, I have to admit that all through the tournament I was concerned that someone would choose to take the first turn on me, and then due to the time limit of the game, would end up getting an extra turn. Normally the judges were calling 1 hour, 30 minutes, 15 minute, and 5 minute warnings. But this time, just as we're starting to roll for a HUGE time consuming mess of melee in my turn, the judges suddenly call out a 3-minute warning. Like, out of nowhere.

Mark had no squads in my deployment zone, I had none in his. He had a squad nearby in a Rhino and his terminators were still waiting to Deep Strike in. But, I had a clear draw if we just played out my turn. I wouldn't even have to stall. Mark's face fell a bit and he said, "I guess we were goofing off too much." That pretty much settled it...

Maybe I could have convinced myself to take advantage of the one little loophole I'd been dreading the whole tournament. But, I wasn't about to punish Mark because we'd been having a good time and not concentrating on the clock. I told Mark we should just end my turn early so he could roll for his Terminators and take the win that was clearly his. I ended up with a 6-point loss.

Denouement
So going into the awards ceremony I was pretty bummed. I knew there was no way I could win the tournament, and I was doubly pissed that the one thing I felt I had control over, that I was really good at-- winning games-- I had failed at too. No "Best General" for me.

After the awards ceremony I looked at my scores.

Battle: 66. I had really hoped to break 70. It was just an arbitrary number I had picked up from other players who were, like me, probably too concerned with their battle record. I started asking myself where I could have made more points. Draws instead of losses. Focusing on the secondary objectives. Giant-killer bonuses.

Quiz: 9. Well, that was a no-brainer. It was an open book test, I'm a bright guy, and a self-admitted rules lawyer on top of that. (The question I missed was, "Finish the following quote: "In an hour of darkness...")

Painting: 12. Well, that's what I was shooting for, except I had hoped that my extensive conversions would count for a little more. I couldn't exactly be disappointed that I had gotten the score I expected, but I did question exactly what I could have done to improve my score. I was looking dead on at my own personal glass ceiling. I am not that good a painter.

Composition: 15. Well, that was a nice surprise at least, especially considering that I had a massive Warboss, no "basic" mobs of boyz at all, and two nearly identical mobs of Trukk boyz-- both with Mega Armor Nobz, no less. So, a little encouragement there. Apparently the fluff DID make a difference!

Sportsmanship: 27. 27! I was stunned! This little tidbit was the turning point for me. I wasn't really trying to be a good sport, and with the exception of the game with Mark, couldn't put my finger on anything specific I had done to warrant that score. To be honest I didn't know I had it in me. This was a WIN for me. More than anything, it's what has convinced me to go back to the GT.

The Down Side...
I do have a couple of complaints, though.

First off, the staff was always running late, which meant that the players were always being rushed. On top of the nervousness of my first GT, the fact that we had 2 hours or less to finish each game lent a sense of urgency, which in turn meant I made a lot of mistakes in my rush to play. I would definitely not consider the atmosphere relaxing nor admit that I felt remotely "at ease." Certainly a portion of this sprung from my newbie status, and my desire to win, so I was a bit uptight; but it bugged me a lot that the delays of the staff seemed to be shifted onto the players' backs.

Second-- I just feel stupid paying $175 for the GT, which includes a night's accomodation in the hotel, when my own apartment is a mere 20 minutes away. I'm just going to have to make sure I go to Baltimore or Seattle or Toronto (that would be cool) so I feel like I am getting my money's worth. It would be nice if GW would just charge us for the GT and let us make our own accomodations...

Finally-- and most importantly-- I realized just how far I really have to go be a real "champion" at the GT. The scoring may seem a bit bizarre at times, but having seen it up close, it really does ensure that the winner excels at every aspect of this hobby. There are so few points seperating the top scores that the subtleties of the scoring become, well, not so subtle. You have to be a good player who can win battles and concentrate on the secondary objectives. You have to be a good sport while you're at it. You've got to know the rules and the fluff to answer the quiz. You've got to be fair in your army composition (and still be able to win with it). And most importantly, you've really got to go all out on your paint job-- lots of conversions and near perfection. Everything is so perfectly intertwined. I have no doubt that Mike Butcher, Bob Liggett, Mark Henry, or any of the other top scorers at the GT are truly at the top of this game.

It's where I want to be... but I realized it's not about winning over other players, it's about achieving the loftiest goals of this hobby, about spotting your flaws and polishing them to perfection.

But let's bring that back down to earth for a second. In my own case, it's realizing that I really am a lazy bastard when it comes to painting, and I need to start learning some techniques besides "speed."

Thank God I have a whole year to work on it...

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