For this episode of “Trials by Fire” we bring you a RTT game, presented not to illustrate any particular amazing strategy or brilliant play, but to illustrate the value of “selective rules lawyering”, particularly when sportsmanship scores are involved. Even rules lawyers don’t need to quibble over every little thing. Let’s face it – people don’t like getting rules lawyered (ha! we’re a verb now!). Sometimes strict adherence to the rules, even when done calmly and politely, can get your sports scores tanked out of spite. It can be even worse when you are new to an area or simply traveling into town for a tourney and your opponent, a local, has a lot of buddies to complain to. Keep in mind (especially in the early rounds) that his buddies may include your future opponents, your judges, and even the TO’s, some of whom may hold the fate of your sports/comp scores in their hands. This game is a good example that carefully choosing when to object or get a judge/TO involved (when it really makes a difference) and when to let things slide (when it probably doesn’t matter) can be the key to winning the game and maintaining a good sportsmanship rating.
THE LISTS:
GiantKiller’s list: (yep, I realize this isn’t a real competitive list these days, but it was all I had painted and ready)
HQ:
Demon Prince, MoSlaanesh, Wings, Lash
Demon Prince, MoSlaanesh, Wings, Lash
Troops:
8x berzerkers, aspiring champion upgrade, powerfist, rhino w/ dozerblade (note, I didn’t end up having to make a single difficult terrain test with a rhino all game – I probably won’t be taking these again.)
8x berzerkers, aspiring champion upgrade, powerfist, rhino w/ dozerblade
7x Plague marines, aspring champion upgrade, powerfist, 2x plasmaguns, rhino w/ dozer blade
7x Plague marines, aspring champion upgrade, powerfist, 2x plasmaguns, rhino w/ dozer blade
H. Support:
Obliterator
Obliterator
Tau opponent’s list: (I’m a bit hazy on the details from memory, as he didn’t bring extra copies of his printed list for his opponents – clever rules lawyers will already see a possible DQ here depending on the tourney rules and strictness of the TO’s. But some RTTs (like this one) don’t even require a printed copy for every opponent. So I simply ask to borrow his submitted copy from the organizers and review that. Always get a copy and spend some time going over what’s in your opponent’s list. Especially if you don’t know and trust the player, never just take their word for what’s in there.)
HQ: Some Forgeworld-created, chapter-approved, off-codex special character in a crisis suit. As this was a tournament game, I immediately started thinking about how to politely word my “sorry, I’m going to have to ask that you get DQ’ed” speech. Then he told me it cost over 260 points and he read me its very unimpressive statline and special rules and I thought to myself “you go right ahead there, champ.”
Troops:
10 imperial guardsmen “slaves”, no special equipment. That’s an old White Dwarf unit, apparently. Again, no objection. You want to bring flashlights to a gunfight, be my guest.
15 or so kroot.
10 Fire warriors in a devilfish
10 fire warriors in a devilfish
10 fire warriors in a devilfish
Elites:
3 crisis suits with missile pods and tau plasma guns. I think they’re elites anyway. They formed a group with the commander at deployment.
Fast Attack:
10 or so pathfinders
Heavy Support:
Broadside w/ railgun
Broadside w/ railgun
BOARD LAYOUT:
We’ll call my side of the board the “bottom” and his the “top” – there’s a medium-sized-footprint 3-story ruined building in the top left corner. In the top center of the board there’s a large-area hill around 2″ at its crown. There’s a smallish 2-story ruined building in the bottom right corner. Running the length of the board diagonally from bottom left to top-right is a wide road, with some small, ruined walls not quite as tall as a demon prince (dammit!) for cover at intervals along both sides of the road. There’s a large, beautiful, custom-built wrecked orky-looking tank terrain piece in the top right near the corner. Two wrecked guard tanks decorate the bottom left near the corner. Very well-put-together board, terrain wise. Lots of LOS-blocking cover. Beautiful terrain, overall. Great boards make for great games.
SCENARIO, OBJECTIVES, and SPECIAL RULES:
The primary objective marker is set dead-center on the board. It is worth 1 victory point for every scoring unit within 3 inches at the end of the game. Deployment is standard Pitched Battle (12″ from board edges – BGB p. 92) We each place a secondary objective within our own deployment zone. These are each worth 1/2 victory point if they’re controlled and uncontested at the end of the game. My opponent plants his objective behind the hill in the center of his deployment zone. I hide mine behind the 2-story ruins in the bottom right corner. We’re also using a special rule I’ll call “dusk of war” – at the beginning of each game turn after the first, we roll a dice to see if night fight goes into effect for the rest of the game – Turn 2 it becomes night on a 6, then 5+ then 4+ and so on. And we’re fighting in a meteor shower, apparently, so before the game we will also roll to determine how many “asteroids” we’ll each get, each asteroid providing us with a large blast attack to drop in our shooting phases with a limit of one per turn.
PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:
Here’s what I’m expecting, no real shocking insight here – he’ll try to pop my transports from range with broadsides while hopping his crisis suits out of (and then back into) cover for more anti-transport fire. Then he’ll unload a bunch of firewarriors and try to rapid-fire down my troops, then hop back in for last-minute objective grabs. I figure my best bet is to just plant my four rhinos on the objective, have my demonprinces try to use the rhinos as cover long enough to lash his fire support units into charge range of my zerkers, and hope my oblits can shoot down a few of those devilfish. With this much firepower on his side I’ll be shocked if my princes survive, but if he’s shooting my princes, he’s not shooting my rhinos and troops, so I’m all for it!
PRE-GAME DICE:
Roll for asteroids: 2 each.
Roll for 1st turn: I win, which I believe is quite significant ’cause now I’ll be practically smothering that objective before he ever gets a chance to shoot my rhinos.
DEPLOYMENT:
Chaos: 4 rhinos line up side-by-side along my 12″ boundary directly south of the center objective. Oblits deploy a few inches left of the ruins in a spot where they have good firing lanes to most of the right side of the board. My hope is that he’ll recognize that and deploy mostly on the left, which will allow me to box him in in that top-left corner after taking the middle. Princes hide behind the wall-o-rhinos, peeking out over the top.
Tau: Pathfinders and one broadside set up in the 2nd story of the 3-story ruins in his top-left corner. Second broadside stands tall on the top floor. It’s a little outside his 12″ deployment range but I’m not going to quibble ’cause I don’t feel it’ll make a big difference. His fire warriors all deploy inside their devilfish, which form a wall-o-devilfish near the top-left ruins. His commander’s squad of crisis suits (and some gun/shield drones) hides behind the devilfish. At this point he explains to me that two of his devilfish should have flying bases so I shouldn’t be able to see the crisis suits’ heads over the tops to shoot them. If not for that fiction, my Lash Princes would have a much easier time snagging them with lash because his devilfish *don’t* have flying bases and are sitting directly on the table (technically a violation of the skimmer rules). In the name of sportsmanship, I say I’m fine with that, but I ask him: “since we’re pretending, how about we pretend the demon princes are slouching and you can’t see them over the rhinos?” I was joking of course, but he takes it real seriously and goes into this whole rant about respecting TLOS and how demon princes are taller than rhinos and he should be able to shoot them since he can see their heads. I actually opened my mouth and inhaled the breath necessary to call him a hypocrite, but then closed it again and dropped the subject… hooray for sportsmanship! It ended up making zero difference, as I suspected. He had indeed boxed himself in that top-left corner and I knew he was in for an uphill battle from the get-go. His guardsmen deployed on his home objective, behind the center hill, and he held his kroot in reserve declaring that they’d try to outflank.
He rolls to sieze the initiative, which could’ve turned out bad for me, but he fails.
GAME ON! (note, all references to the board will be from my point of view, so “top” refers to his board edge and “bottom” to mine. Left and right are my left and right, etc.)
Turn 1a: Chaos.
Movement: All four rhinos move up 12″ to the objective and all four pop smoke. Demon princes follow, moving off to the right a bit to keep the rhinos between them and the tau. I believe the princes will be key to this fight, and I need to keep at least one alive. Oblits move toward the center a bit and can’t get LOS on anything but the guardsmen.
Shooting: Obliterators fire plasma cannons and “obliterate” a single guardsman who fails his cover save.
Assault: none.
Turn 1b: Tau.
Movement: the 3 devilfish swing around to position themselves in a wall-formation between the ruins and the rhinos in the center. The crisis squad moves just to the right of the top-right devilfish.
Shooting: Everything he’s got (2 broadsides, markerlights from pathfinders, all 3 devilfish, and the crisis squad) shoots at my leftmost rhino, which contains zerkers. They only manage to shake and stun it (albeit many times over) thanks to amazing cover saves from the smoke launcher. Go go smoke-popping rhinos!
Assault: The crisis squad jumps back behind the devilfish wall as predicted.
Turn 2a: Chaos. Roll for nightfight – nope!
Movement: The 4 rhinos create a diamond shape around the center objective, with all hulls w/in 3 inches to claim it, in the following positions: plague rhino at 12 o’clock, unharmed zerker rhino at 3 o’clock, plague rhino at 6 o’clock, and stunned zerker rhino at 9 o’clock. The demon princes move northwest about 6″ to hide behind walls, not wanting to be without a cover save against all that tau firepower. Oblits move directly south to find a tiny firing lane to one of the devilfish.
Shooting: Oblits pen the bottom-left devilfish with a lascannon shot, but he makes a cover save thanks to the tau skimmer upgrade where they always count as obscured from more than 12″ away (very useful!). Plasma fire from inside the top plague rhino blows the burst cannon off of the top-right devilfish.
Assault: none
Turn 2b: Tau. Roll for reserves – no kroot!
Movement: the devilfish circle around some more and end up forming a wall-o-fish due west of the center objective about 8″ away from the leftmost zerker rhino. Crisis suits follow and get into positions to fire on my rhinos again.
Shooting: Again everything fires at rhinos. The top plague rhino is immobilized and the TL bolter is blown off, and the left zerker rhino is shaken and stunned again. No big deal. In this case I’m happier with the immobilized than a shaken or stunned – the rhino is right where I want it and this way my plagues will be able to shoot plasma again next turn.
Assault: Crisis squad jumps behind the devilfish wall, but doesn’t quite get all-the-way hidden (even taking into account the imaginary height from the imaginary flying bases). There’s the opening I need.
Turn 3a: Chaos. Roll for nightfight – nope!
Movement: Both demon princes fly out of cover and get ready to try and double-lash the crisis squad. The zerkers from the leftmost rhino disembark 2″ and move 6″ toward where I expect to put the crisis squad. If this goes badly, they’re all going to get shot to pieces next turn. If they succeed and get a good charge off, I’ll be wiping out about 1/3 of his army, points-wise, this turn. Obliterators march left and draw a bead on that bottom devilfish again.
Shooting: Closest prince lashes the crisis squad, passes his psychic test, and drags them about 6″ toward the berzerkers, who are now drooling because the crisis suits are in charge range. But then they fail their pinning test – I can’t lash them again ’cause they’re already pinned and can’t move. That means the princes won’t be able to reach. 2nd prince lashes the broadside down off of the 2nd floor, but he too ends up just out of charge range for the princes. Drat. Plague rhino shoots plasma at a devilfish and does nothing. Oblits shoot lascannons at a devilfish and do nothing. Zerkers dare not fire pistols for fear of losing their charge due to model removal.
Assault: Zerkers charge the crisis squad. My opponent reminds me that the forgeworld guy has some trick where he causes wounds to anything that attacks him, so I directed all my attacks (from everybody but the one zerker in base-to-base with him) at everything but him, since he’s an independent character… and wipe out all of the crisis suits and drones, leaving only the overpriced commander, who fails leadership at -8 and gets run down. Woot! Zerkers consolidate north to charge into the building next turn.
Turn 3b: Tau. Roll for reserves – kroot come in!
Movement: Here’s where, I think, he should’ve unloaded all of his firewarriors and tried to wipe out the zerkers and princes. The princes are out in the open and the zerkers are in prime rapid-fire range for everybody. But instead my opponent keeps ‘em in their devilfish. I can see he’s working out in his mind whether he can squeeze them all onto the objective last-turn after poking some holes in my wall-o-rhinos and try for a draw. His firewarrior-laden Devilfish circle around toward the bottom (my edge) ending up at about the 7-o’clock position in relation to the center objective. This also brings them significantly closer to my oblits. Kroot come on from the right board edge and fleet toward the center, wisely staying spread out as that’s exactly where I’m planning on putting my 2 asteroids.
Shooting: True to what I imagine his plan is (blow up the rhinos to make room for the devilfish) Broadsides wreck the immobilized plague rhino and the devilfish wreck the now-empty zerker rhino. Plagues pile out, squinting against the sudden onslaught of daylight. Guardsmen fire their peashooters from 24″ and manage to stick a wound on the rightmost demon prince. He’s pissed.
Assault: none. Yet.
Turn 4a: Chaos. Roll for nightfight – it’s nighttime!
Movement: Zerkers get into position to charge the unhappy broadside on the ground. Leftmost prince moves to lash and charge the pathfinders. Rightmost prince moves to lash and charge the guardsmen. Oblits get good Slow n’ Purpolseful rolls and close to within 12″ of the rightmost devilfish.
Shooting: Zerkers fire pistols at the broadside, doing nothing. Left prince lashes the pathfinders out of the building. Right prince lashes the guardsmen off the objective. I drop an asteroid on the kroot, it scatters 6″ but still kills 2. Oblits explode the rightmost devilfish with multi-meltas under half range. Two fire warriors die in the explosion, the rest get out, pass pinning, and eyeball the oblits.
Assault: Zerkers wipe the broadside, left prince wins combat and runs down the pathfinders, right prince wins combat and runs down the guardsmen.
Turn 4b: Tau. Tau concedes. My opponent’s morale was low from the get-go, believing his list was ill-suited to the mission, and by this point he’s so frustrated he just gives up the ghost. I try to calm him down by complimenting him on his painting (which, admittedly, was pretty impressive!) and asking him questions about his “neat” forgeworld guy. End result: full VPs, and full sportsmanship scores from this guy.
POST-GAME REFLECTIONS:
The moral of the story is this: When sportsmanship is at stake, constantly be evaluating your odds as the game unfolds. If something objectionable happens, as right as you may be, swallow your pride and think hard about whether it will actually make a difference in the long run before deciding to argue a point or get a judge/TO involved. And if you do have to call in a judge/TO, no matter how hot-headed your opponent gets, always stay calm, cool, collected, and professional. You’d be surprised how much more “right” you sound when you’re not the one with a red face and a whiny tone of voice, pounding the table and hurling insults.
And when you’re aiming for high sportsmanship, it never hurts to compliment your opponent at every opportunity (as long as you can make it sound genuine). Good rolls, good plays, good painting, good conversions – compliment his personal hygiene if you have to. Find some way to make him feel better about himself and he’ll probably feel at least a little better about you.
Comp scores = psychhammer. And it’s one big reason why I think “soft” scores are an absolutely terrible idea for a competitive game. If this had been, say, a Magic tournament, what are the chances an opponent would’ve even been let in the door using made-up cards he’d printed out of a magazine, or cards whose condition was bad enough to actually effect play (i.e. marked)? But in 40k RTTs you sometimes have to put up with situations like this for the sake of not getting your sportsmanship score tanked by a bitter opponent (and, potentially, his pals). Unfortunately, it looks like soft scores are here to stay, even in competitive events like Nova. Hopefully you won’t run into many glaring violations, but if you do, remember to pick your battles, and always address the issues calmly and politely with your opponent and the judges.