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| Analysis and Final summary By Dan Moore, 6 December 2003 |
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| Well another Rogue Trader Tournament has come and
gone and I have time to reflect on my preparations for the tournament and
my first tournament performance with the Wych Cult. Shooting versus Assaulting I guess the foremost thing in my mind is how much this tournament differed from previous RTT's in which I have competed. The cumulative effects of new army codecies (Chaos and Imperial Guard) coupled with the use of the Trial Vehicle Rules seemed to substantially change the types and configurations of armies at the tournament. There were far fewer assault-style armies and lots more shooting-style armies fielded. Most participants appeared to field more tanks and vehicles with mixed weaponry to take full advantage of the TVR. I suspected that this might be the case weeks before the tournament, but I decided to stick with my Wych Cult army roster as it was originally envisioned. I was more interested in style points for a cool army theme as opposed to making an army that would beat all comers. My first opponent, Larry Paladin, had converted his Blood Angels to a red "vanilla" space marine army with lots of tanks and long range firepower. He commented that the TVR greatly diminished his Blood Angels effectiveness so he changed his army to plain marines and added tanks. It's a pity, because it would have been fun to fight the BA with my Wych Cult, TVR or not. I also noted that two of the battle scenarios used in the tournament seemed to favor armies equipped for long-range shooting instead of assault. The "Priorities" scenario in Game 1 with its narrow deployment zones in opposite corners created much greater separation between armies than most scenarios. Obviously, this would give shooting armies more opportunities to kill opposing armies as they moved to assault them. The "This is Heavy, Doc" scenario in Game 2 was another one that definitely favored armies equipped for long range shooting. The "gravitational instability" rule generally penalized armies that rely on movement by effectively immobilizing some units and substantially reducing movement of most others. I found it interesting that the periodic changes in gravity, while profoundly affecting movement, had no effect on ballistics for shooters. Weapon ranges remained unchanged, and shooting accuracy was unaffected. This scenario seemed to have the opposite effect of the 'Dawn Assault" scenario which penalized shooters in the first turn by using "night fighting" rules and allowed assault armies an opportunity to advance without being fired upon. What happened to the cover? In thinking about the most recent tournament I found it notable that there were more battlefields with little or no cover for concealing men and vehicles. All three battlefields that I played on were desert terrain with only rocks and sparse ruins on them. Perhaps this was a random occurence, but then again it could be a trend for future tournaments. In my final analysis for the May 2003 RTT I commented that I felt it was feasible to field a dark eldar army with only a few raiders because there was adequate cover to hide them in case your opponent got to go first. This sentiment ran counter to the general consensus of the Dark Eldar community (Commorragh e-group) which insisted that you need to field lots of raiders (front ones screen those in the rear) or none at all (horde-style army.) I remember getting some comments from Jackwraith, a fellow Commoragh e-group member, who stated that the tournament battlefields that he played on were featureless, flat terrain without a shred of cover. He commented that he had to use lots of raiders at tournaments so that as his forward raider units got shot down on first turn they could screen his more valuable HQ/assault raiders and Ravagers behind them. I now firmly appreciate Jackwraith's observations after losing 3 of my 4 raiders to penetrating hits in turn 1 of Game 1. If I use my Wych Cult army in the next PIL-sponsored tournament, I will have to consider reconfiguring my army list to accout for battlefields with less terrain. One option, of course, will be to add lots more skimmers to the army in keeping with coventional wisdom of dark eldar players. Another interesting option will be to add a webway portal to my Wych Cult army. I could deploy the webway on turn 1 and then use it to bring all of my raider-mounted units on to the battlefield from reserves. This approach obviously has some drawbacks, but it is preferable to letting my opponents get first-turn, penetrating hits on my motionless raiders loaded with fragile wyches. Those dreaded dice Those of you that have read my battle reports for this tournament may have noticed that I had abyssmal dice rolling in all of my games. When I thought about it afterwards, it was rather humorous that the only things that my 4 dark lances destroyed all day were two lousy Orks. The units with blasters (6 total) did somewhat better by destroying a speeder and a looted Leman Russ Obviously, my heavy weapons teams need more practice with their shooting ;) That, or I need to get some new dice... Actually, I did not let my poor dice rolling interfere with my enjoyment of the tournament. Luck is always a part of the game and it usually evens out in the end. I know from experience that the best 40K generals work around their bad luck and take full advantage of any breaks they get. Part of my problems in the tournament were undoubtedly a result of a lack of experience and tactical saavy with my Wych Cult. Just as with the Dark Eldar, there is a learning curve to use the army effectively and overcome the whims of fate. I suspect that as I get more proficient with using my Wych Cult the luck factor will become less significant in the outcome of my games. Until then I will just have find some loaded dice (just kidding.) Where to from here? While finishing my recap of the November RTT, I have already started thinking about what I want to do for the next PIL tournament in the spring of 2004. At the moment I am kind of torn between using the Wych Cult again with a revised army list or doing another variant army from the Dark Eldar list. A Haemonculus coven might make for some interesting conversion opportunities. Ah well, back to the workbench... Dan
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