A Little Friendly Target Practice

I had a fun game vs. BlueMoon (formerly Blackshirt) tonight. The 'Ard Boyz semi-finals are just over a week off and GW finally posted the scenarios for the next round. So we rolled up one of the missions and played a full 2500 pt. game. We wound up playing the first annihilation scenario.

In the name of pre-tourney secrecy I won't go into the details of the lists we used or the tactics we employed, but I did take some pictures for you to enjoy. Large games like this are quite a spectacle.

Yep, that's 14 IG armored vehicles on 6 Eldar ones. And I still had 3 more in reserve!

Uh oh, the Fire Dragons are out! Get the flamers ready boys!

One Russ down and another headless! Note that Eldrad is walking from the table edge after the Hydras wrecked his ride on the first turn. :)

Here comes my reserve armor!

Three Meltas at point blank range. Two Miss and the third only shakes him. Gar! Where's a Commissar when you need one?

Eldrad's unit finally reaches the battle and dies to flamers + massed lasguns. The other Seers laugh at him before butchering my Vet squad.

A Falcon manages to take out a Hydra with a ram, but explodes when he hits my Sentinels. It must be the paint job that saved them. :)

It's turn 4 and I suddenly remember that I still have Marbo and 2 units of Stormies that I haven't been making reserve rolls for. Gar! In my defense, I was up half the night comforting a sick two year old. I think I've slept maybe 15 hours in the last 3 days. :)

It's the middle of turn 4 and... OMG! All three Sentinels are still alive! I guess Hydras are way more scary. :)

The end of Turn 5. I forgot to take a picture at the end of turn six, but he had only one immobilized tank left at the end, while I still had 6 tanks and 3 Sentinels. BlueMoon won it on KP though, 24 to 17. In a regular annihilation mission, it would still have been something like 13 to 11 in his favor.

Back to the listhammer...

This Time I Earned It

Farmpunk and I went down to the South Store last Sunday. The turnout was good enough that we both had to wait for tables to clear before we could play. That store does get crowded.

I had been hoping to play Red Eye's Eldar, as I felt like I hadn't gotten to play him at his best during 'Ard Boyz. Farmpunk and others have told me that he's usually a very hard player to beat, yet I'd massacred him somewhat easily. Perhapes, I thought, my first turn of shooting had frazzled him. I'd managed to take out two-thirds of his AT threats before his Wave Serpents and Fire Prisms had even gotten to move. So, I thought, things might have been different if he had gone first instead of me.

Unfortunately, Redeye was too busy square-basing with his Dwarves to come play 40K. But BlueMoon, the 'Ard Boyz #2 was eager for a match with me. He'd come in 2nd place using his Plague Marines list, but tonight he wanted to try me with his Eldar in preparation for the semi-finals. So we decided on 1850 points with a D3 to determine the mission based on the 3 'Ard Boyz scenarios we played during the tourney. As luck would have it, we rolled up the third mission with BlueMoon going first. Heh, it seemed I would get the "what if" test vs. Eldar that I wanted after all.

My army was pretty similar to my 'Ard Boyz list. This time, I decided to see how a 10-strong unit of Stormies would do, since Marrius was talking it up recently.

HQ
215 Company Command Squad w/3 x Plasma, GLauncher, Astro, Fleet, Chimera

Elites
65 Sly Marbo
165 10 Stormtroopers

Troops
155 Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera
155 Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera
155 Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera
155 Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera

Fast Attack
150 3 Sentinels w/Lascannons
145 Hellhound w/Hull Multi-Melta
145 Hellhound w/Hull Multi-Melta

Heavy Support
180 Leman Russ Demolisher w/Hull Lascannon
165 Leman Russ Battle Tank w/Hull Lascannon

I believe BlueMoon was running something like the following:

4 Wave Serpents
1 x Seer Council
1 x Fire Dragons
2 x Aspect Warriors
Jet Bike Squad

He didn't have any bright lances, but he had plenty of S6 weapons that could pop my armor from behind.

Turn one, he moves all his Wave Serpents flat out and into my lines. During my shooting I manage to knock out the Wave Serpent containing his Seer Council, who promptly charge my tanks in turn 2. I made a mistake here by not spreading my tanks out before he charged them. He was therefore able to get multi-charges on me and pop both my command Chimera and a troop Chimera with the Seer Council. The Fire Dragons charged my Russ and killed it, while one of his Wave Serpents shot up my command squad and ran it off the board.

Fortunately for me, all of my reserves came on during turn 2. Not Marbo though, as I had forgotten to even get him out of the miniatures case. It wasn't until later when we were adding up kill points that I realized I'd never deployed him. :(

The battle got really bloody at this point. I shot up Eldrad and the Seer Council with a Hellhound and the Demolisher, killing all but one non-Eldrad model and running *him* off the board. The other Hellhound plus the Stormies killed off the Fire Dragons, but not before they killed the Demolisher too. My remaining Chimelta Vets then started slugging it out point blank with his transports.

In the end, I won a very bloody Major Victory with the near objective claimed by 2 Chimeras and the other contested with both a headless Hellhound and the Sentinel Squadron. BlueMoon edged me out on Kill Points, but that would only have mattered if he had pulled a draw. If we had been playing for the top spot in 'Ard Boyz, I'd still have come out in first place, though I would have been only a battle point or two in the lead instead of 5-6. :)

Random Musings:

1) Stormies are better in 5-man squads with meltas.

I won't deny that a 10-man Stormtrooper squad is a very survivable objective-contester. But that's all they're really good at. Mine couldn't manage to knock out a Wave Serpent with Krak Grenades. And when I played Marrius tonight, his stormies likewise couldn't manage to knock out a Hellhound.

So, I'm going to stick with the 5-man AT teams. That way I'm not left standing in the middle of the field going "Um, now what?" like I was against Blackshirt.

2) Sentinels still rock.

In the game I played with Marrius tonight, I was wishing I'd had them. We were playing Capture and Control with a standard deployment. The extra Chimelta I took instead of the Sentinels wasn't nearly as useful as an outflanking unit would have been in either pulling him off his objective or threatening his Lascannon/Missile Launcher Squads. As it was, we pulled a draw since I couldn't shift him off his objective and he couldn't get his infantry anywhere near mine.

3) My CCS needs meltas more than plasmas in small games.

I usually take plasma guns in my CCS to help protect my backfield from deep strikers and to pummel Termies or MCs. But when playing Marrius and his shooty infantry guard, I really needed another AT unit instead. The CCS should have been rushing across the field to help kill tanks and/or flame the platoon he had on his objective. But instead I had them sitting in mid-field cover for most of the game because they couldn't hurt his Russes. So in small games, I'm going to have to go with the meltas.

Pimpin' My Rides

With 'Ard Boyz over (for now), I'm back to my modeling and painting projects. The latest is a set of 3 Chimeras that I've converted to look a bit more like a Bradley IFV. The idea of setting the turret back is nothing new. I got the basic idea from Edwin over at YTTH, who got it from someone else. Admiral Drax has done something similar too. But for my conversion I wanted to make sure that I preserved the top hatch in the rear by cutting out the L shape from the front of the turret riser and re-modeling the hatch lining. I also wanted to model realistic firing ports in place of the ball-socket lasgun arrays. Here's the result:


The rear hatches are resin pieces ordered from Forge World. They look great, but unfortunately they fit so poorly that I couldn't hinge them the way I did with the plastic doors on my old Chimeras. One of the hatches was twisted so badly that I had to use multiple coats of epoxy just to hold it down properly.

The firing ports were made by cutting down the plastic support bits that usually hold the lasguns in place. I used a plastic rod with a smaller diameter to make my rivits this time, so they don't look too large like on my previous conversions.

Here's some pics from the garage after I undercoated them:



I'm so happy with how these turned out that now I can't stand looking at my old Chimeras any more. As a result, I've started converting up 2 more so that I can use all-new models in my 1500 point mechanized force.

By the Emperor!!! I WON IT!!!

I'm very proud to be able to announce that I took FIRST PLACE in the local 'Ard Boyz tourney down at the South Store today. We had 14 players, and considering how ad-hoc it was put together, and that there was a Magic Tourney happening at the same time, it went really, really well. All of my opponents were very good sports and we had lots of fun. We even had free pizza!

Here's the list I took:

HQ
Company Command Squad w/Plasma Pistol for Commander, 3 x Plasma Gun, Medic, Astropath, Fleet Officer, Chimera (Hull Flamer)

Elites
Sly Marbo
5 Stormtroopers w/2 x Melta
5 Stormtroopers w/2 x Melta

Troops
Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)
Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)
Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)
Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)
Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)
6 Grey Knights + Justicar w/2 x Psycannon (Thanks Farmpunk!)

Fast Attack
3 Sentinels w/Lascannons
Hellhound w/Hull Multi-Melta
Hellhound w/Hull Multi-Melta

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Demolisher w/Lascannon
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/Lascannon
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/Lascannon

First Battle: Tyrannid Horde

My first battle was vs. Tyrannids. I'll dub my opponent "NidDude", as he was much older than Nidkid from the North Store. I'd never seen or met him before, but he was a pretty smart player. We ended up with a perfect draw, 2 objectives each with equal killpoints. Though I'm ashamed to say that I could have won it. I screwed up and fired a squad on the last turn that I should have run to the center objective instead. Doh!

I was fuming all through lunch over that mistake. :)

Result: Draw

Second Battle: Horde Orks

My second game was vs. GrotBoy from the North Store. He's been around since the fall, but we just never seemed able to get a game going. So it was great to finally get to play him. He brought a mob of orks backed up with 2 Battlewagons, a Skorcha Wagon, and a Shokk Attack Gun armed Big Mek.

I massacred him. GrotBoy just wasn't mentally prepared to deal with 2 Inferno Cannons, 6 Heavy Flamers, 3 Battle Cannons, and 21 Meltas. Plus 16 shots/turn from the Grey Knights. It was Dawn of War deployment and he rolled first turn. So he set up two large squads of 30 on the 24" line on opposite sides of the center, with a Big Mek HQ in the middle sporting a Shokk Attack Gun. Rather than set up 6" in, I decided instead to not deploy anything and just roll most everything onto the board on my first turn. He then moved the big squads to within 12" of my table edge and rolled the rest of his army on from his own edge.

When I came on I did a denied flank onto the left half of the board, so that half of his army would have an extra long trip to get to me. I then wiped out the entire 30-Ork mob in front of me in a single round of shooting from the Demolisher, Hellhounds and Grey Knights. It wouldn't have been so bad for him if he had read Farmpunk's tactica on pulling models. But he kept pulling his casualties from the back instead of thinning out the mobs of Boyz in front of my flamers the way NidDude had done with his Gaunts.

He also made the mistake of taking 2 HQ choices. In this mission, each of those HQ choices was worth 5 KP all by itself. I got them both. The Big Mek with the Shokk Attack Gun fell to Marbo, while his Warboss fell to massed flashlight and Battlecannon fire.

Result: Massacre

Game Three: Mech Eldar

Now I got to play Redeye, who I'd last faced when he was playing with borrowed Marines. This time, he was in his element. He's won the last 2 local 'Ard Boyz tourneys with his Eldar. So I prepared myself for a really tough fight.

Oddly, the game went much like our IG vs. Marine battle. I rolled first turn, but he didn't keep his skimmers off the table. Like in the previous battle, he got spooked by my Fleet Officer and decided to just deploy everything right away. While I kept 3 Chimeras and a Hellhound in reserve. Like our previous battle, we were playing a spearhead deployment. This time with a single objective in the middle of each non-deployment table quarter. So I planned on using my reserves to take the objective nearest to my board edge.

Since I had first turn, I pummeled his skimmers before they could get aloft and start getting cover saves. My Sentinels destroyed one Fire Prism, while my Russes destroyed a transport and not only immobilized the other Fire Prism, but knocked it's main gun out as well. This left him with only the Fire Dragons for effective AT work.

He then did something I still can't believe, he moved a skimmer and 2 squads of troops onto the objective that was only 12" from my board edge. When my reserves rolled on, I massacred the forces he had there with Meltas and Heavy Flamers. He seemed surprised that I could bring my reserves on from anywhere on that long table edge, even though he had specifically deployed his forces in our last battle so that he wouldn't be hit by reserves coming on from that very same edge. Go figure. :)

Anyway, he sent Eldrad down to say hello. Who promptly fell to massed melta and flashlight fire from 2 disembarked Vet Squads. Marbo and the Stormies dropped into his backfield and managed to keep his Warwalkers, Fire Dragons, and Snipers busy for 3 turns while I killed all but 2 of his skimmers. In the end he gave me another massacre.

Result: Massacre

Random Musings:

1) Sentinels really are amazing.

Just when I start thinking I need to drop them from my list, they go and prove their worth once more. In my first game NidDude outflanked 2 units of Genestealers. Using the Fleet Officer, I forced him to re-roll his sides so that he had to enter where the Sentinels were. They survived 6 rounds of combat from a unit of 20 'Stealers. They only fell once he had 40 'Stealers on them during the last turn. Tarpit baby!!!

During the second game, they tied up a unit of Tankbustas for 4 turns that could have been shooting up my Chimeras and Hellhounds instead. During the third game, they popped a Fire Prism and soaked up most of RedEye's return fire before dying. What other unit can do all that? They're the ultimate distraction!

2) Hellhounds make people cry.

Let's see, you automatically hit me with a template that you can place almost anywhere within 18"? You then wound me on a 2+ with AP4 and no cover save? AND I need 6's to hit you in HTH? WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!

3) Chimeras with hull flamers and melta vets just rock.

Best offensive unit in the IG codex, bar none!

4) Marbo is a badass!

He almost pulled 30 gaunts off an objective in my first game. In my second, he killed an HQ single-handed before charging a unit of 30 boys to pull them back from my lines. In my 3rd, he killed 5 Fire Dragons with his demo charge and kept them from moving towards the objective until it was too late. Oh yeah!

5) Arizona Iced Tea + A Payday Bar = The Perfect Game 3 Energy Snack!

No headaches or loss of energy this tourney!

First Vassal Battle will be...

Our first Vassal 40K battle will be GK's vs. Dark Angels (maybe DeathWing) at 1000pts. We will probably do it on a 4x4 table, since 1000pts on a 6x4 isn't a lot of models, and we'd spend most of the game walking around, not necessarily doing a lot.

I think I've got my list down. I promised no crazy inquisitor dakka squad with anti-deepstrike mystics, and we've both agreed to no LandRaiders. Both Chambers and I wanted a simple game for our first one. GK's have simple enough rules, and so do DA's. Esp. if Chambers does Deathwing.

With GK's there's not a LOT of variation. At least 1 squad with psycannons, and possibly a termie retinue for the GM with a psycannon or two.

It should come down to Marines in termie armor getting beat on by GK's in power armor. He'll have nasty Assault cannons, I'll have not so nasty Psycannons.

I'm hoping we can get the game started mailing back and forth this weekend. That is, if working on the new house, and moving doesn't get too much in the way.

I'll put up lists for each force when we start playing.

Trying something New out...

We're going to try something new out shortly, Chambers and I are gearing up at full-tilt molasses speed to do some Vassal40K battles, and get those reports up for tactical analysis. To let you guys tell me how dumb I am for charging too close to Chambers too soon.

We're going to try to e-mail the game to one another, and take our turns. Then we'll take time to talk about what we chose and why. Hopefully, we can get some good tactics discussions going, and everyone can learn something.

I'm hoping this might become our weekly big post, or biweekly regular post.

It should also allow us to try out some experimental theoryhammer, and/or help us to discuss how to deal with 'problem' lists. (that might be after the 'ard Boys, so we can see what the true cheddar this year really is... will it be a Lysander boy party? or lil dudes in outflanking flying tanks?)

any thoughts? requests?

Odds and Ends in the Wee Hours

Tourneys always take a lot out of you. Work and chores pile up. And the family wants some attention too after you've ignored them for a few days. So, I'm essentially grounded for the week while I get everything caught up.

But, I've still got a bit more than an hour to myself in the late evenings before I go to bed. So I've been using that time to work on all the little things that are unfinished on my models. Things like weapon conversions on my tanks and Sentinels. I usually give them at least a base coat and a wash. But eventually I need to go in and finish up by doing some drybrushing before I pick out the details.

And so, I finally finished off my old 2nd edition Scout Sentinels on Monday and Tuesday. The bodies have been done for a while. But I was waffling between autocannons and lascannon conversions for them. Post-Tourney, I've finally settled on the lascannons (Though most people wouldn't blink if I called them something else.). And so I finished them off with a nice paint job.

The cannon models are metal 2nd edition infantry lascannons with the backs cut off and some greebling added. While the teeth plates are a piece of Chimera track guard held on by one of the hydraulic supports for an IG snow plow. The teeth plates started as a justification for the hardened veterans doctrine in the IG4 codex. The idea was that the plate would push forward at the command of the driver and knock an enemy to the ground where the could be stepped on. When IG5 came out and HF went away, I took them off. But I liked the look so much that I brought them back. If anyone asks, I'll just say they're for scaring orks. Grrrrrr!!!

Well I Suck, But in a Good Way!

The FLGS-South had it's tourney this last Saturday. They had 36 people show up to play 40K, which was 16 more than had signed up the previous Sunday. I don't know how many of those extra 16 players were walk-ins, but I know that Buckler was very surprised at the great turnout. Fortunately, he and his team were well prepared. So we had relatively few problems, apart from finding the place. Google was NOT helpful.

All of the missions were objective based. With some bonus objectives thrown in to provide opportunities for extra points. In all, I felt that the missions were very solid, and I had no complaints while playing them. Though I do hope that Buckler follows up on his plans to have more original scenarios for the next mixed objective/KP tourney.

Here's the list I took:

HQ
135 Company Command Squad w/Lascannon, 2 x Plasma, Krak Grenades, Astropath, Fleet Officer

Troops
135 Veteran Squad w/3 x Plasma, Lascannon
135 Veteran Squad w/3 x Plasma, Lascannon
155 Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)
155 Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera (Hull Flamer)

Fast Attack
150 3 Scout Sentinels w/Autocannons
145 Hellhound w/Hull Multi-Melta
145 Hellhound w/Hull Multi-Melta

Heavy Support
180 Leman Russ Demolisher w/Hull Lascannon
165 Leman Russ Battle Tank w/Hull Lascannon

Game One - Tyrannids
5 Objectives - Dawn of War Deployment

My first game was against a shooty Tyrannid army in a dawn of war setup with 5 objectives. I'll call him Nidkid. He was fun to play, and seemed like a good guy, but I did have some problems with him that I'll go into a bit further down.

I rolled first turn, so I set up my HQ and 2 Las/Plas foot vet squads in the center of the board about 12" in. My plan was to lure him into concentrating his advance on the center, where I would shoot him to bits before advancing on his objectives. Depending on which side he favored, I would run one of those foot vet squads either left or right during the late game. While my Chimeras and Hellhounds would try and take/contest one or both of his corners.


This plan worked almost perfectly. He deployed his Hive Tyrant with 2 Tyrant Guards and a unit of gaunts right on the other side of the center ruins. When my tanks rolled on, I massacred him. The Hellhounds took care of the gaunts. While my Las/Plas squads took his Tyrant down. I'm sure Farmpunk can sympathize. :)

On his first turn, he brought on 4 Carnifexes and two units of warriors. He also brought on 3 more units of gaunts. One of which grabbed the objective on his left, leaving 2 units of gaunts to grab the objective on his right. That's when things got nice and killy. I was dropping warriors and carnifexes left and right with my Tanks and Sentinels. I just decimated his center. And this is where things get complicated. Because Nidkid was playing his shooty Carnifex on the right all wrong.

This didn't come out until after the game, when I was talking about NidKid's tactics to some other guys from the south store. He had bought two barbed stranglers for his shooty 'Fex. But he was using them to shoot twice, while the Tyrannid codex says that buying two weapons makes them twin-linked. So he was throwing 2 twin-linked pie plates per turn at my infantry in the center from the same 'Fex. Which ran my command squad off the board and killed the other two squads outright.

Now Nidkid thought that the codex rule had been updated in a FAQ to allow this, although he didn't have a printout of it with him. Buckler however, did. And after consulting it, the general consensus was that the FAQ allowed you to fire 2 weapons separately only if the weapons themselves were twin-linked to begin with.


So... see those two dice by the big rock on my side of the board? Nidkid and I decided afterward that there should have been at least one surviving troop squad there. Now back to the game.

Turn 5 came, and I wasn't quite done killing 'Fexes yet. So instead of running full-speed at the left objective with both Chimeras, I held back and shot up the lone Carnifex on that side. I ran my headless Hellhound right up in front of the Carnifex on the right. Hoping to either block a charge to protect my foot vets, or run right past him in the next turn to contest his objective on my right.

The left-hand HTH 'Fex survived the melta onslaught with one wound left and ate a vet squad after one of Nidkid's Zoanthropes finally popped the Chimera nearest to him. The shooty 'Fex on the right simply side-stepped the Hellhound and shot up my foot vets with the illegal dual-twin-linked pie plates. However, I was still in a position to pull a draw or a minor win by running the Hellhound at full speed into the right objective, and by running the Chimera on the left up into his gaunts on the right. With the "correction" we agreed upon later, that would have been an assured minor win with a chance of a major win.

But, the end of the turn came and he rolled a "2". Game over. Major (later corrected to minor) win for him. (Sigh) That's how it goes. I gambled and lost. NidKid would go on to have his rear handed to him by Farmpunk in the next round.

List-wise I started wishing at this point I'd had a couple more Chimeras to bring along. Even if only to run them forward empty to block with. I usually use the Sentinels for that, but they were doing such a good job killing warriors that I didn't want to stop and bring them over to provide cover from his shooty Carni until it was too late to protect them.

Result: Minor Loss

Game Two - Space Marines
2 Objectives - Spearhead Deployment

It's kind of odd how Farmpunk and I traded opponents in these first two rounds. Anyway, Ship and I went at it in a spearhead deployment. I failed the roll for first turn, but he decided to let me go first anyway. So I put the foot vets, Sentinels, and Russes on the board, with the Chimeras and Hellhounds in reserve. Once again, I killed a Thunderfire cannon with my first shot of the game. Some day maybe I'll get to see one in action. :)


The rest of the battle was razor-edged. You can see the parking lot of dead and immobilized armor that wound up in the middle of the table. The game came down to one unit of marines on his objective vs. one unit of dismounted Melta Vets on mine. Both his unit and mine ran once and managed to rally back to the objective. Finally, on the bottom of the 7th turn, he managed to make my guys run off the board. I made a last ditch attempt on turn 8 to run my Demolisher at top speed towards his objective to contest it, but the darn thing immobilized itself on the dead Sentinels in front of it. I then fired everything I had left at his two remaining marines, but I rolled ones to wound with my lascannons and the Demolisher cannon scattered wide. He was safe.

My earlier yearnings for more Chimeras now intensified. There was area cover on my side of the board, but it wasn't in places that I could effectively fire from. To get effective fire-lanes for my lascannons, I had to put my foot vets out in the open on the right, where they were killed off by bolter and autocannon fire by turn 4. It got so bad that I finally had to run my HQ over to the cover you see them in just to deny him a bonus point.

Given how ineffective my infantry was, I feel like I fought that battle with one-third of my army tied behind my back. If those foot vets had instead been 2 Chimeras with troops and a Commissar Lord inside, I would have had no problem taking his objective away from him. Oh well.

Result: Minor Loss

Game Three - Space Marines
1 Objective - Pitched Battle Deployment

When Farmpunk and I were discussing the vulnerabilities of my list, one of the things we decided was that I might be vulnerable to a shooty Marine or Guard list. Well, here it was. Shooty Marines. Lascannons ahoy!

I'll call my opponent Bigdie, since he was using some awefully large dice. He had four especially large ones that were almost an inch on a side, with barely distinguishable glyphs for the one and six. I almost called him on that, but I decided to let it slide. We were both in the bottom brackets by then. So his "special" dice obviously hadn't helped him that much.

I rolled first turn. Since I was facing a wall of lascannons, I decided to put everything on the board for a quick rush rather than come in piecemeal. Though I did hug cover where I could.

Then the bottom fell out of my plan. He rolled a "6" (Hmmn...) and stole the initiative. He then rolled a couple of 6's (Hmmn...) and knocked the turret off my hull-down Demolisher. Which was a 1 in 50 shot at least. As he started taking apart my armor, I got pretty sullen. But I remembered Farmpunk's come-from-behind victory from a few weeks back and pressed on glumly.

On turn 4, things started to go a bit more my way. My Hellhounds and Surviving Chimera opened up with heavy flamers and inferno cannons on his marines, COMPLETELY clearing the middle of 2 scoring units. By turn five I was hoping to end the game on a draw with no units from either side within 3" of the objective. So as soon as my turn ended I rolled a die before he could and got a "2". Game over. The water-lady had gone home by this point and my head was throbbing. I was just glad it was over so I could get something to drink. :)

Bigdie was looking sullen himself. "Well, you won." he said.


Huh? He was right. I'd forgotten that you were supposed to count every scoring unit within TWELVE inches of the objective. I had 3. He had 2. It had literally come down to one lone guardsman that he couldn't kill. If I hadn't forgotten the 12" rule, I could have run another squad over for a major win.

I'm bringing water with me next time.

Result: Minor Win
Final Standing: 24 of 36 (Bottom of Middle Third)

Conclusion

Well I suck, but in a good way. Meaning the path to improvement is obvious and do-able. With some slightly better luck in either of the first two games, I probably could have scored in the top 50%.

My tactics weren't perfect, but my problems there paled in comparison to my list problems. Which were obvious and consistent thoughout the day. My armor, especially the Hellhounds, performed brilliantly, but my Las/Plas vets were getting shot up too easily. I'd been worried about them being so dependent on cover, especially after my experience in Lafayette where there wasn't any at all in the deployment zones. But I didn't have much choice, really. I only had 2 Chimeras to bring. And the Hellhounds were a more pressing addition than more transports.

Given around 8 - 10 pieces of terrain, I can go toe-to-toe with Farmpunk or Red Eye using this list, both of whom placed in the top third for the day. But most of the tables were only sporting 5 pieces of terrain arranged in an X formation. I was actually pretty lucky that the first 2 tables I fought on had a bit more than that. Buckler admitted that the terrain had been stretched tight by the high turnout. But that's always going to be the case at any large event. So I need to remove that dependency from my list. That means going full-mech. Which is where I was headed anyway, but these results just confirm that I'm on the right path. On the way home I used my winnings from the painting contest to help buy 2 more Chimeras at the South Store.

So... what was the winning IG list? You'll laugh, it went something like this:

Commissar Yarrick
5 Ogryns
1 Griffon Mortar
1 Scout Sentinel w/Heavy Flamer
Tons and tons of 50-point infantry squads

Yep, IG infantry spam with Yarrick as the tip of the spear. He broke just about every rule I know about army composition. Which makes me feel silly for trying to craft a balanced list for an objective tourney. But my goal was to see how my all-comers list stacked up against other players. Which I did. When the mixed KP/Objective tourney comes up, I should do much better as a result of my experience here.

What's really funny to me is that I think maybe I could have taken him with the heavy flamers, inferno cannons, and pie plates I had. I'm absolutely certain Farmpunk could have with his Sisters.

Luck of the draw, I guess. Anyway, despite the problems I had a lot of fun.

1250 at the Gopher

This weekend I drove up CU to attend a 1250 tournament at the Gopher.
I had not been to a tournament since they moved into their new location, and I was impressed with how much space there was. In the old store they had troubles cramming in three 6x4 tables, in the new location they fit in five 6x4 table with plenty of room to move around.
I also have to say that this was one of the smoothest run tournaments that I had the pleasure to attend for quite some time.

The matchings were done by random lottery with latter two games paired according to victory points . You got six points for a win, three for a draw and nothing for a loss. Tie breakers would be decided by over all killpoints gained through out the day.

Of the ten players there was one Nid, one Necron, and one Tau player. The rest of the armies were marines with the majority I believe falling to the spiky variety.

Here a quick list of what I brought:
HQ- Squeaky Bobo – DP with wings and MoN
Elite- 2 Dreadnoughts with DCCW and Missile launchers
Troop- 8 berserkers in a rhino (w/ second bolter) with a fist champ
7 PM with dual plasma and a fist champ
10 CSM in a rhino (w/ havoc launcher) with dual melta, ICU, and a fist champ.
HVY- two oblits in one squad
total points was 1249

In my first round I faced off against another Chaos player who brought:
HQ- Lash DP w/ wings
Troops- 10 berserkers in a rhino (w/ second bolter, EA , and dozer) and a pw/ p pistol champ
15 1ksons with doombolt/melta bomb sorcerer
Heavy- 5 obliterators broken into two squads of two and one by it self

The mission was killpoints and the setup was pitched battle.
The table was a cites of death table with many of the buildings being solid so that was going to be hard to draw line of sight across the board. This table had a retro feel to it, almost like we were playing fourth edition again.
He won the roll to go first and set up in the center of the board spread out over three feet of the six feet available. In response I anchored my center w/ the plague marines and oblits in the highest ruin that I could and every thing else went on my extreme right flank.
He came on in a wave with the 'zerkers leading the charge and the daemon prince shifting to cause havoc in my center. While the terrain slowed his progress I focused my fire power on his oblits and stopping his one rhino.
By turn three I got on to his flank and hit it with most of my mobile forces still left. And that is where I stopped, his daemon price stood up to my zerkers, the remaining dread, and my price for three player turns. By the time it died I had lost my dread and over half of my berserkers. On the center flank I had traded my oblitorators for one of his and all of his berserkers. From that point on I spent the rest of the game trying to take out his large squad of 1ksons with my daemon price, dreadnought, full csm squad and reduced zerkers, to no avail he keep on making save after save. When the game ended on turn seven he still had three of the dust buckets left.
In the end he killed off one dreadnaught and the oblits, while I netted a DP, squad of berzerkers, and two squads of oblits.
Giving me the win at 4 to 2

The second match was against another CSM army , this time it was a pure slaneesh force.
His force was the following:
HQ- Lash sorcerer with doombolt added on
- Summoned Greater Daemon
Elite- Plasma cannon Dreadnought
- three terminators with IoS, x2 combi-plas, 1 set of dual LC and all as asp champs
Troops- 2 units of six noise marines with sonic weaponry
- one unit of 12 noise marines with champ
- six lesser daemons

The mission was capture and control with five objectives, the deployment was dawn of war.
The board was set up with two bunkers at opposite corners each holding and objective marker. The center of the table was dominated by the ruins of a warhound titan, a very nice, very large piece of scenery that held the remaining objectives.
I won the roll for first turn and placed Squeaky in the warhound and the csm w/ rhino as close to the op4 bunker as possible. First turn I made a full court press against his bunker taking the unit of NM closest to it down to two while the dreads and 'zerkers moved flat out towards it. While my oblits and PM secured the home objective in my base Squeaky ran through a squad of NM and a dreadnought.
In the end I was able to hold my home objective and contest the daemons objective(which was the only other scoring unit left on the table) with my rhinos.
Had the reserve rolls not been horrible to my opponent I don't think that I would have been able to pull of the win and would have gone into round three with a tie, but as it was I went on to play the only other undefeated player.

In the last round I face off against the Imperial Fists.
HQ- Lysander (joined to sternguard)
Elite- 10 sternguaed w/ 2 meltas and a fist in a droppod
Troops- two 10 man tac squads with las/plas and fist(?)
- one full tac squad in a rhino with fist, ml, and flamer
HVY- Thunderfire cannon

The table's mission and deployment was randomly determined for each game. We rolled Annihilation and pitched battle.
I won first player and chose to go second.
The board was set up with craters for the most part except for the two massive wall sections one on each side of the board. After seeing my opponent deploy I set up everything behind a wall section out of line of sight of his entire army.
First turn Lysander and friends dropped in and stuck one inch away from my mess of units, they quickly took down squeaky with poisoned rounds. In response I shot out four marines with oblitrators and assaulted with the zerkers and both dreadnoughts. Due to the tight space only one dreadnought and five of the zerkers were able to get into combat, but the upside was that lysander was also kept out of the fight as well. On the following player turn Lysander got into play and started to get his own back. Meanwhile the rest of his army is making a beeline towards my forces.
By my turn two Lysander is on his own and I mange to mass assault with both the CSM and the PM thanks to a poor difficult terrain roll. So at this point I have just shy of 1000 points in combat with Lysander and it still takes me two rounds to finish him off. I do so however just as the rest of his forces are reaching my lines and I am able to mount the wall and start thinning his forces.
By the end of it I was able to hide my decimated berserkers and only lost one dreadnought. While I was able to claim a far sized portion of his army.
Giving me the third win of the day at 7 – 2.

The overall standings ended up as:
Me in first place w/ traitor marines
the Imp fist took second
and Iron hands took third place by edging out the Tau by one KP.


Reflections and Impressions:
I had a great time, which had little to do with my winning and much to do with how well the tournament was run. Coupled with the relaxed atmosphere and great players I think that the 2 ½ drive was worth it. I am looking forward to the next tournament that they hold, barring illness I will be there.

I have never given the 1Ksons much thought seeing as Papa Nurgle won me over back in third edition, but they defiantly lived up to their fluff. They proved to be imposable to get rid of even with the majority of my forces beating on them.

It doesn't matter how good your list is if the dice or the mission/board are against you it is going be nigh impossible for you to win.

Lysander and a full unit of sternguard in a pod is a sick unit. Combine the rerolling bolters with the combat monster that is Lysander, and you have a group that will remove one unit from the game when they land and force you to commit far more than their points to get rid of them.

mine goes to 11th

My girls in action.

Fireteam Nova Tournament:
Buckler and the boys did a great job to put together a large tournament like this. There were a lot of people signed up. I believe there were 34 entered to play, and a few more showed up to watch.
I had a good time, playing against some nice guys. It's also refreshing to see people at adjoining tables having good times as well. Even if their army was getting a thorough thrashing.

I faired well. Not as well as I had hoped, not as high as I COULD have been if I'd been a little more bloodthirsty, and vicious with faith. I had a good time, and my opponents all said they did too.

I don't have an official breakdown of the number of specific armies. I know there was 1 Eldar, no Dark Eldar, 1Tau, 3 Tyranid, 3 WitchHunters, 1 DaemonHunters, 4Imperial Guard, 1 Daemon, and 3Orks (I think)
The rest were Marine or Chaos. not a bad mix, I think.

The top placing armies were:
Imperial Guard, Imperial Guard, and Orks

IG being the new codex made a strong showing. I was hoping to face more psykers than I did. My psychic hood went mostly unused again. I got some excitement with 'nids, but no real action, like Daemon Princes, or Farseers, or IG Psychic Choirs. I was hoping to get to use the hood to block IG psycher squads. I woulda been good at it too.

my list was as such:
1500pt WitchHunters list for FTN Tourney
I wanted a balanced list, that would be a good all-comers style list. I wanted at least 3 troops, 1 disruption (callidus) which also happened to be my elites choice, 2 Exorcists, some anti-psyker, and anti-DeepStrike (Inquisitor Lord Dakka squad). I knew I'd need a Fast attack, and I would need more anti-tank, which became the IST's fallback role, after holding my home objectives.
Thanks to Chambers for helping me sift through my 3 forces, and come to a list that could be a good all-comers multi-purpose list.

Game 1: Marines
My first game was Marines. Dawn of War, capture and control (5objectives), Ship didn't know the rules real well, but we actually didn't have any problems in our game. We both were pretty straight forward with what we were doing. I pulled a punch or two where I shouldn't have. I had one opportunity to use Divine Guidance on a tactical combat squad, but didn't, thinking the weight of fire from a full SoB squad could kill them off, and there wasn't a power weapon or powerfist in them, only a melta. none of them died to my fire, and they bogged me down, keeping me from claiming one of his objectives. He also did a smart thing, and jetted a razorback onto my objective with IST's on it. The razorback got lucky, and withstood 2 meltas, and an exorcist to be immobilized, but still contest my home objective, otherwise, I'd have pulled out a Major victory for claiming 2 of the 5 objectives, and contesting 2 more. He had none. He would go on to be Sandwyrm's 2nd game.
Minor Victory




Game2: Tyranid
My second game was big bugs and gribblies. This guy was Sandwyrm's first game. I was glad to see bugs with corner deployment, and 2 objectives. I knew I could probably leave my IST's parked on my home objective, and if he DID charge me with troops, the Inquisitor could shoot them to bits. easily. The Zoanthropes I thought might cause me trouble, as might the shooty tyrant with guard. The shooty 'fex was going to have to go as well. The Exorcists were going to serve me well on this game. Shelia was the suprise star however. as the bugs kind of hunkered down in the building on his objective, She tore things up, killing 2 Zoanthropes, a bunch of spineguants, and putting some smack down on an elite CC fex. It took 16 hits to take Shelia down. She was on fire. definately earning her gold cookie, by distracting much of his force, while the exorcists shot things up, then one SoB squad charged forward to torch spineguants and contest his objective.
Major Victory


Game 3: Orks
I was very glad to see that my final opponent was a balanced ork list.Uumlok's trukk Krashaz. He had a few large blocks of boys, and burnaz in the battlewagon (quite an impressive scratchbuild.) With a warboss with nobs in an old armorcast trukk, and more boys in another nice scratchbuild trukk. Uumlok told me he'd been playing orks since just before 3rd ed. I loved seeing the old models, rather than more BlackReach (I like the BR models, they're really common though.) The IST's earned their keep exploding the Battlewagon, and falling to a boys charge, which let the SoB's and shelia kill off the burnas and boys. Uumlok made what he thought was a tactical error taking his 2 trukks around the side blocked by a large solid building, to charge the Inquisitor. It turned out to be fine, as both of those were troops I wasn't going to be able to kill, because I couldn't shoot their trukks until they were next to me. (the exorcists were busy with the Deff Dread, and Killa Kans.
Draw


Summary:
overall, I came in 11th. I think I brought the right list for this time. I might take some inducted Guard Vets next time. I did pretty good with Army comp anyway. It's good to know more what the army comp rules are, and what the paint standards are. I need to put gravel on my bases, so they look better, and get a few more points. I did get compliments on the black and cream color scheme. I had been tempted to strip it all and quick paint all of my sisters light cream with a brown wash. I might actually push ahead with my original colors, and keep the black and scarlet for the transports. It's interesting how compliments, and my desire to have an impressive looking army can possibly override my want for a quick paint job.

I'm still thinking of priming my GK's in reddish brown, and paint them cream, with perhaps a pearlescent overcoat.