As mentioned a couple of weeks ago

The match-ups and results were as follows:

Stelek (Space Wolves) vs Dashofpepper (Orks)

With the amount of pre-game trash-talking that went on (most of it not even from the players themselves), this was clearly the main event of the night. Stelek and Dash both took the lists they would be using in the actual tournament and fought tooth and nail, and almost to a complete stand-still. The result? Tied by both table quarters (primary objective) and objectives markers (secondary objective) it came down to victory points where Stelek was able to pull ahead by roughly 200-250 points (by his estimate).

Winner: Stelek

(Battle report)

Danny Internets (Imperial Guard) vs Hulksmash (Space Wolves)

I’m working on the full battle report for this one, but for the meantime I’ll admit that I got beat fair and square. We both had terrible shooting for the first 3 turns, trading about 1 unit per turn. When given the opportunity to decisively swing the game in our favor we both failed in epic fashion, first him then me, but Hulk was able to finally crack open Chimeras and start rampaging through Veterans to take the game.

A great guy and an even better player, this game was a pleasure from start to finish.

Winner: Hulksmash

Jawaballs (Blood Angels) vs Old Shatter Hands (Tau)

I’m sure Chris is working on the full battle report for this one and I don’t know the details, but suffice to say it was a very, very close game that Chris was just barely able to win. When the reports go up I’ll be tossing a link in here.

Winner: Jawaballs

(Battle report)

St. John (Blood Angels) vs Chumbalaya (Dark Angels)

Lulz from start to finish, I wish I had taken the time to actually watch this game. From what Chumby told me, John played his Sanguinary Guard list (which he also played in the tournament) while Chumbalaya brought the most ridiculously terrible Space Marine list that’s been seen since the glory days of GTs and Rogue Trader Tournaments. Needless to say, it was a blowout.

Winner: St. John

My third game of the day was against a Black Templars player from Ordo Malleus, a local club from just over the Tappan Zee Bridge. His army was a single Land Raider (Crusader variant) build with deathstar unit of 7 Assault Terminators on board supported by 3 Rhinos, a Marshall, Emperor’s Champion, Venerable Dreadnought, and a Land Speeder.

The mission was standard Annihilation with Spearhead deployment. My 19 possible KPs versus my opponent’s 12 would give him an edge, but my long-range dominance would more than compensate. Having not played against Black Templars since 3rd edition could have been problematic, however I managed to remember most of the important stuff (namely Righteous Zeal). I won the objective and geared up for an alpha strike against the Land Raider packed full of Terminators.

My opponent deployed as far forward as possible with the Land Raider at the center point of his board edge. I had no problem using my Scouts move to get within charge range with my demo Vets on the first turn and managed to explode it with meltabombs.

In retrospect, this might have been a mistake. Trading a Land Raider for Veterans is most definitely in my favor, but I probably could have allowed him to advance and later destroyed both the transport and its contents with meltaguns. The Terminators all had Lightning Claws so they couldn’t really do much to my vehicles and their 5+ invulnerable save wouldn’t spare them from my Vendettas and Veterans. Instead, I wrecked the LR, lost my Veterans in retaliation, and the Terminators sat in area terrain the whole game to avoid being killed. Between their 2+ armor save and 3+ save from going to ground it would require a turn of shooting just to dislodge them (due to Righteous Zeal) and then another turn to inflict casualties. With the other threats, I couldn’t justify the use of firepower and decided to leave them alone.

In the same turn, I destroyed a Rhino and immobilize another but did little else. I was able to hit and to penetrate, but my damage rolls were piss-poor, but they were enough to curb return fire from the Dreadnought and Land Speeder. In response, a Crusader squad shook a Vendetta with a meltagun and the last mobile Transport braved dangerous terrain tests to head straight towards the heart of my forces.

On my second turn, I devised a cunning plan but made a stupid mistake which ended up costing me both a Major Victory and 1st place in the tournament.

The Black Templars’s Righteous Zeal rule requires that any infantry squad taking casualties must take a morale test which, if passed, forces the unit to move D6″ towards the nearest visible enemy. Because I had (stupidly) scouted to my left flank, I really had nowhere to go with the flyer that would take it out of meltagun (and possibly charge) range on the next turn. What I decided to do was move flat-out behind the enemy army. Now, any casualties triggering Righteous Zeal would force the Black Templars to run backwards, towards the Vendetta, rather than towards my army where they could do real damage. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to get my Company Command Squad out of the Vendetta before moving, so would have nowhere to run if the vehicle was destroyed.

But of course, the vehicle was indeed destroyed. It managed to save versus a meltagun hit, but the Emperor’s champion managed to land a hit, then penetrate, then immobilize the flyer, destroying it. The CCS survived long enough to shoot, but was then taken out in close combat after doing nothing at all for lack of appropriate targets. Fortunately, the Vendetta was successful acting as a decoy for the Templars’s zeal so it wasn’t a total waste.

On the other side of the battlefield the Marshall and his squad of 10 Crusaders disembarked and moved on the flank of my Chimera wall. Between Manticores, Vendettas, and Chimeras I was able to whittle the unit down to just the Marshall and a meltagunner. My Psyker Battle Squad was in position to reduce their leadership to 4, but failed their psychic test. Crap.

The Marshall split from the gunner and got ready to put his size thirteens up some unlucky guardsmen’s asses. The last marine with the meltagun destroyed the PBS Chimera and the Marshall finished off the squad in assault. A 6 on his massacre roll would be enough to get him inside some nearby terrain.

Recognizing the threat that the Marshall posed, I immediately assigned all firepower in the vicinity with the task of taking him out. Unfortunately, due to some spectacular cover save rolling, it would not be enough. For the record, I fired 6 meltaguns, 6 twin-linked lascannons, and 12 heavy bolter shots at him and inflicted exactly 1 (non-Instant Death) wound. Fortunately, I was able to eliminate tne meltagunner so it wasn’t a total wash.

The Marshall charged into some of my disembarked Veterans on his turn and killed a few, but was then laid to rest by the almighty rifle butt. Sometimes, I guess that’s just the way it goes.

At this point in the game there was little left on his side of the board and I spent the next couple of turns mopping up KPs on the immobilized Rhinos and weaponless Dreadnought. The Emperor’s Champion and squad had retreated out of line of sight and I had no way of reaching them. The Terminators remained in terrain rather than take lascannon fire and I dared not shoot at them lest I move them into charge range via Righteous Zeal.

The game ended with a score of 9-6 in my favor. I fell one KP short of a Major Victory, but picked up 2 bonus points for a total of 16.

Breakdown for the day: Massacre (23), Massacre (23), Minor Victory (16) = 62 points. This would put me in second place, just two points behind the first place Space Wolves player from Brothers Grim running a Thunderwolf Cavalry list.

Not too shabby!

Jawa was running a pretty solid list with 3 Razorbacks, 3 AC/LC Predators, a Land Raider, Chaplain, Terminator Assault Squad, Corbulo, and Mephiston. With only 15 Assault Marines making up his Troops, the army is light on scoring units, but that wouldn’t matter for this mission. The trick would be identifying each of the individual threats and dealing with them systematically. There’s (1) Razorback firepower, (2) Predator firepower, (3) LR + deathstar unit, and (4) Mephiston.

My multi-lasers would be enough to consistently neutralize the Razorbacks and, given enough time, destroy them. Additionally, my Vendettas could be relied upon to stop the Predators. Taking out the Land Raider wouldn’t be too problematic given my high volume of meltaguns, but doing so before it gets too close wouldn’t be easy. Mephiston would be virtually impossible to kill while in range of Corbulo and in cover, so I’d need to bait him out into the open and then either gun him down with lascannons (he has no invulnerable save) or massed meltas from Veterans.

The scenario we played was straight victory points with Pitched Battle deployment. Additionally, there were two objectives a la Capture & Control worth 300 bonus points. I rolled a natural 5 for the roll-off, which was bumped up to a 6 because of my Emperor’s Tarot. Jawa chose to save his re-roll in order to increase his odds of stealing the initiative. I deployed for the alpha strike and my opponent set up with the assumption that he would succeed in the steal, admittedly putting himself in a very vulnerable position, but also ensuring that he’d wreck my face if he was successful.

Unfortunately for Jawaballs, he was unable to roll that 6 despite the re-roll. My Vendettas shot forward and the embarked infantry were successful in eliminating all of their targets thanks to some fairly good rolling. (The Command Squad, with its four twin-linked (via orders) meltaguns, is generally very reliable as is the demo Veterans squad with its meltabombs, but the Inquisitor retinue is kind of a crap shoot.)

Because of the smashing success of my alpha strike it was an extremely brief game. By the end of Turn 3 Jawaballs had only Corbulo left alive in a weaponless Razorback and he conceded the game, giving me a second 23-point massacre.

Since we had an hour and a half left in the round we decided to play a “What if?” scenario to see what would have happened if the initiative had been seized. I did a lot of damage on my way down, but Jawaballs was successful in leveraging his advantage and ended up effectively tabling me (I had an immobilized Vendetta left that we both forgot about). This was the first time I can ever remember having been tabled since I started playing this game and it is certainly the first time it’s happened at a tournament. In the future I’m definitely going to be more cautious about how far I stick my neck out on Turn 1.

In the past we have been able to accommodate 40 players, but due to limited space this year we had to restrict registration to 28. Still not bad! And while we have more than enough terrain for 20 boards, having only 14 let us showcase some of the better stuff. Bob generously spread the prizes around so despite the overall winners being decided solely by battle points there were also significant awards ($40+) given out for painting and sportsmanship. Lastly, there were 10 different prizes being raffled off (Chinese auction style), including a Grey Knights army painted by Black Matt!

On to the battle reports!

For my first round I found myself paired against Chris, a really nice guy from upstate New York. This being his first tournament ever, Chris wasn’t here expecting to win and was happy to take any advice I could give him both during and after the game. I also gave him my email address so I could help him craft a killer IG list for future competitions. It was a very friendly game.

The scenario was Dawn of War with 5 objective, but without Night Fight. Additionally, the players’ board edges were extended to include the short board edge to players’ left, allowing both reserves and units arriving on the first turn to effectively outflank. Given the lack of Night Fight, going second was clearly advantageous: this would allow one to know where the enemy is before arriving, shoot first, and also steal objectives during later turns. I won the roll-off and made the obvious choice.

Unfortunately, my opponent was running almost all infantry, with the exception of a Valkyrie, 2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks, a Leman Russ Vanquisher, and a Chimera. I kept shaking the LRBTs to the best of my ability with Vendettas in order to bring everything else to bear on the exposed infantry. Using indirect fire, the Manticores were easily the MVPs; together they killed scores of infantry.

Despite losing a few Chimeras, I was able to get all of my infantry in position to take all five objectives and score full bonus points for a total of 23.

While not particularly well illustrated in the pictures, this mission reinforces the fact that deployment is vitally important in 40k. With so many objectives, it is necessary to plan out exactly what you want to have happen before you start putting models on the board. This holds doubly true for scenarios like Dawn of War where you need to spend at least one full turn making up the 12″ of movement that you normally skip due to the size of your deployment zone. In what can potentially be a short five turn game you need to get your Troops where they need to be fast. Being too aggressive with IG can get you killed by the enemy, but being too cautious will get you killed by the scenario.

As Fritz always reinforces, always play to the scenario. It doesn’t matter if you get slaughtered down to a handful of guys if you can still satisfy the victory conditions. Too many players fall into the trap of reliving 4th edition, even two years into 5th.

Again, I found myself with a lucky draw in which my army was heavily favored due to its composition and the primary scenario objective. As described previously, this mission was all about scoring kill points, but it also featured atypical deployment to shake things up. I spent a great deal of time thinking about this particular mission during the days prior to the event and knew exactly what I had to do. With my Vendettas, Manticores, and multi-lasers it was clear that I had a massive ranged advantage over my opponent, whose army had limited resources with which to reach out and touch me. To make matters worse, the board had virtually no area terrain, meaning that any of Rich’s units out in the open would be subject to a volley of lascannons with only their Go to Ground save to spare them.

Furthermore, wacky deployment spelled doom for Rich from the start. With 15 lascannons, I had no problem planting my ass against the table edge and shooting for 6 solid turns as he advanced on my lines. Regardless of the terrain or opponent, my army would be coming on in the corner of the table formed by my table edge and my scenario-specific reserves short edge. This ensured one of two outcomes: (1) my opponent would deploy directly across from me, or (2) my opponent would deploy further away and come from an angle. The first outcome would allow my short edge reserves to slam anything in the opposing army on the flank immediately upon becomming available. This would allow me to knock out Land Raiders with massed short-range melta fire and lay multiple flamer templates down on units of my choosing. The second outcome would deny me optimal use of my short edge, but coming at me on an angle would delay the enemy at least one full game turn. Either way, I come out on top.

For the sake of completeness, Rich was fielding the following army (roughly):

Daemon Prince – Wings, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission

Daemon Prince – Wings, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission

5 Chaos Terminators – Icon of Chaos Glory, Combi-melta x4
Chaos Space Marine Land Raider

7 Chaos Terminators – Icon of Chaos Glory, Combi-melta x5, Heavy flamer

7(?) Plague Marines – Meltagun x2
Chaos Space Marine Rhino

5(?) Noise Marines – Sonic Blaster
Chaos Space Marine Rhino

7(?) Khorne Berserkers – Aspiring Champion (w/ power fist)
Chaos Space Marine Rhino

7(?) Khorne Berserkers – Aspiring Champion (w/ power fist)
Chaos Space Marine Rhino

3 Obliterators
3 Obliterators
3 Obliterators

Thanks to the Emperor’s Tarot (broken allies FTW) I won the roll-off and chose to go second. Without Night Fight rules on turn 1 there was absolutely no reason to go first as no one worth his salt as a player would start with units on the board versus an Imperial Guard army in an Annihilation game. Rich chose to keep his entire army in reserve and I did the same, with the exception of my Company Command Squad and accompanying Astropath, in order to get my reserves bonus (INAT FAQ incorrectly rules that the Astropath must be on the table in order to bestow its reserves bonus).

My opponent rolled poorly for his reserves with only 1 unit of Obliterators, 2 Rhinos (Plague Marines and Berserksers), and a Daemon Prince arriving. Rather than deploy across from me, Rich chose to go with the second option and bring hits units on his own corner, presumably to bait me into getting near his own short reserves edge. My reserves rolls were equally bad with exactly half of my army arriving despite needing only a 3+ to bring my units on. Luckily, my single squadron of Vendettas would be enough to kill all 3 Obliterators despite going to ground for the 3+ cover save. The remainder of my army came on the board behind a tight Chimera wall in my corner to prevent the possibility of being lashed forward.

More Chaos baddies arrived on the top of Turn 3 and, seeing how it was futile to sit back and get shot up, went for broke and advanced on my forces. In spreading out my Vendettas I later got a little too close to his short edge and got charged by a squad of reserved Obliterators, costing me one of my flyers and my Hydra. More lascannons would be successful in exploding a Chimera and causing enough wounds on a nearby Veteran squad to make it test leadership, fail, and fall off the board edge.

In response I was able to use a combination of lascannon and multi-laser fire to knock out all four Rhinos for cheap KPs, leaving the squads inside stranded. Vendettas eliminated both the charging Obliterators and the large squad of Chaos Terminators (who had deployed via Deep Strike right in my face, but fortunately scattered out of 6″ melta range). Finally, a Daemon Prince bit the dust as I threw every multi-laser I had at it for lack of better targets.

The game ended with 8 kill points to 2 in my favor, earning me a Major Victory with 19 battle points for a total of 58.

While I’m happy to have won, I can fully attribute the outcome of the last game to luck of the draw. Much like my game in the preliminaries versus horde Orks, I don’t see how there was anything Rich could have done in this scenario in order to radically change the outcome of the game. I think it may have been better to have come on the board directly opposite my corner despite being vulnerable to my short edge reserves–this at least would have forced some difficult decisions regarding which units to sacrifice. However, he still would have ultimately had to weather a ton of firepower while allowing me to dictate the terms of engagement with regards to exactly when and where the battle would be fought.

For my second game I was pitted against one of Bobby’s opponents from the preliminaries at Mark’s Comics in Queens, NY. The guy came with one other player (both brought identical lists) and a posse of half a dozen observers wearing matching club shirts with the slogan “Make no friends.” I introduce myself, hand him my list, and immediately he whips out a calculator to make sure I haven’t cheated. You can already see where this is going.

His list was built around the BA Land Raider dedicated transport gimmick with 7 (yes, seven) Land Raider Redeemers and naked Troop squads inside.. He smugly handed me a copy of his list (probably expecting me to freak out given the 7 Land Raiders) and I smugly handed him a copy of mine. He gave pause after looking it over and asked, “Um, how many meltaguns do you have?” to which I replied, “16.” Scissors, meet Rock.

Librarian (Blood Lance + the S10 power)

5 Honor Guard with 4 meltaguns
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

5 Assault Marines (on foot, no upgrades)
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

5 Assault Marines (on foot, no upgrades)
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

5 Assault Marines (on foot, no upgrades)
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

5 Assault Marines (on foot, no upgrades)
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

5 Assault Marines (on foot, no upgrades)
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

5 Assault Marines (on foot, no upgrades)
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-meltas + extra armor)

The game itself was a clusterfuck of stupid before it even began.

I loaded suicide units into my Vendettas and deployed for alpha strike and my opponent put all his cards out on the table, splitting his Raiders into 3 wings–2 on the left, 4 in the center, and 1 on the right. I used my Scout move to go flat-out straight ahead and my opponent claims that I can’t Scout vehicles with embarked units unless the guys inside also have the Scout rule. lolwut? I explain to him that this is unsupported by the rules, defeats the purpose of Scout for several units, and would also prevent transports like Drop Pods or BA Land Raiders from being able to use similar rules, such as Deep Strike. I also explain that this is one of the most popular tactics for IG frequently seen at all national competitions and was even employed by the winner of the ‘Ard Boyz finals last year.

He would not yield so we called a judge who immediately ruled in my favor. He still wouldn’t let up so we called over another judge, the TO, who again ruled in my favor. After carrying on for another 5 minutes the TO told him to knock it off or leave. He was not a happy camper and would spend the rest of the game making me look up and prove even the most rudimentary rules. Adding insult to injury, he also took every opportunity to make snide comments about my tactics, army, and rolling for the next two and a half hours. Oh, and he accused me of using loaded dice after literally the first roll. I guess he felt justified in taking every opportunity (and I really mean every single opportunity) to act like a total douchebag for the next two and a half hours. Unfortunately for him, he was barking up the wrong tree. It takes a lot more than that to get me rattled.

Jawaballs snapped a picture of me just as the game was ending.

Anyways, I place my objectives centrally and they bounce back towards my deployment zone while both of his bounce into his corner. From the start I knew it would be virtually impossible to score a Massacre because of the objective placement. My CCS blows up the HQ Land Raider while a Veteran squad penetrates 3 times but only immobilizes another. My Demolitions squad charges the central Redeemer and destroys it as well. All 15 Lascannons and 2 Manticores fail to do anything but shake a Land Raider (this will be a recurring theme). He kills a couple of Vendettas in response and uses his Honor Guard + Librarian to kill my CCS. He also starts advancing the LRR on the far right towards the most central objective.

On Turn 2 I begin advancing several Chimeras towards his corner with the objectives and 2 occupied LRRs. The remnants of my exposed Veteran squad finally take out their initial target and I use my solo Vendetta to whittle down the squad for PBS elimination, which succeeds in making them run off the board. The other Vendettas fail epically once more, managing to only immobilize one of the Redeemers that had no intention of ever moving anyway. The Manticores also both fail to do anything, again. He advances conservatively again on the right, moving up 6″ to fire everything at my Vendetta squadrons.

Eventually he would get his right-most LRR to my side of the board where I would wreck it with meltas. On the top of Turn 6 he ran two 5-man squads on to my objective where I had 30 Veterans, 2 Chimeras, 2 Vendettas, and a Psyker Battle Squad waiting. They did not survive and I took both objectives for a total of 3 (one included the objective worth double). On the other side of the board I was able to keep my Platoon Command Squad and its Chimera alive by virtue of my opponent’s terrible rolling. These guys managed to contest one of his objectives, but the other required me to destroy his LRR which I consistently falied to do despite shooting at it for 6 solid turns. The tally was 3 objectives to 1, a Minor Victory for me with +3 battle points for a total of 16.

Not quite the stomping I’d hoped for, but it was enough to knock him out of contention. I consider it a public service.

As an aside: one of the people he came with actually turned out to be a really cool guy, so I don’t want to paint the whole club with the same brush. I can only speak for the guy that I played.

(Want more? Click here for the results of Game 1 or continue on to Game 3.)

He was running a mixed bag of mechanized Eldar:

Eldrad
Prince Yriel

5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpent (2x SC, stones)

5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpent (2x SC, stones)

10 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent (BL, stones, star engines)

10 Storm Guardians – Fusion gun x2
Wave Serpent (BL, stones, star engines)

6 Jetbikes – SC x2
6 Jetbikes – SC x2
5 Rangers
5 Rangers

Nightspinner
Nightspinner
Nightspinner

He only had 2 bright lances amongst his 4 Wave Serpents and possessed little in the way of anti-tank firepower so the match-up was clearly in my favor. Despite having the Emperor’s Tarot I lost the roll-off and my opponent wisely chose to take the first turn. I deployed as far forward as possible to take the mid-field and hold it with my dominant melta and heavy flamer-saturated presence. Without a deathstar unit he was unable to advance on me and without long-range firepower he couldn’t afford to sit back and shoot either. This put him in the terrible situation of simply trying to weather the storm and use Turn 6 to grab objectives using flat-out skimmer movement.

He spent his first turn zipping Fire Dragons over to my Vendetta squadron, which had scouted flat-out to the right flank, and unloading 5 shots at max range. 3 hits, 2 penetrations, and both saved by yours truly thanks to the INAT FAQ, which rules (albeit incorrectly) that skimmers moving flat-out in their scout move receive cover. I don’t agree with the INAT FAQ on this point, but the rules is the rules and I had checked with the TO prior to the event’s start as to what outside clarifications we would be using.

My first turn saw the destruction of both Fire Dragon Wave Serpents along with their squads, leaving Eldrad and Yuriel on foot. I made an effort to gun down Eldrad with lascannons to remove his Runes of Warding after a couple of perils of the warp losses from my Psyker Battle Squad and then managed to roll box cars again on 2D6 after he was dead. Doh. Another bonehead moment was misjudging the distance of my other Vendetta squadron from the board edge, giving the Scorpions a charge by 1/16″ upon their arrival. I lost a flyer but he lost his Scorpions to 5 of the Imperium’s bravest (you know, the guys who wear backpacks containing 8 gallons of jet fuel).

The rest of the game was uneventful as I systematically killed off his Troops while ignoring the Nightspinners. However, I forgot about the Star Engines on his last Wave Serpent which managed to zoom right next to the center objective on Turn 6. I fired everything I had at the Wave Serpent, ultimately exploding it with melta fire and allowing the guys inside to remain within 3″ of the objective rather than deploying out the back access point. My remaining shots reduced the squad to 3 men and my last remaining psyker finally passed a test giving the unit -1 Ld. The result? My opponent’s bad luck continued as he rolled a natural 10 and saw his last Troop unit fall back, giving me all 3 objectives and a Massacre for 23 points.

(Continue the saga here with Game 2)

Having only practiced one of the scenarios prior to the event I was curious to see if they would play out as I had envisioned. I spent a lot of time this past week thinking about strategies to use against different army archetypes in these contexts, particularly with the third mission’s radically different deployment options. My overall impressions of the missions were ultimately spot-on. Thanks to search lights, the fog in Mission 1 had almost no impact on my game and with 8 Troop units I had no problem seizing 3 objectives. Getting a Massacre in Mission 2 was obviously going to be hard without tabling someone due to the need to capture all 5 objectives (and it was). Finally, Mission 3 was dominated by shooty armies both at my venue and elsewhere according to battle reports across the internet.

Interestingly, there were no Orks or Tyranids represented at Brothers Grim. I know at least one of the players won the preliminaries with Orks, but chose to take a different army based on the nature of the semi-finals scenarios. From memory, the codex representation was as follows:

4 Blood Angels
3 Space Marines
2 Chaos Daemons
1 Space Wolves
1 Eldar
1 Tau
1 Chaos
5 ? (can’t remember)

Based on the objective-heavy scenarios I made only two significant changes to my list (found here):

(1) Dumped a Vendetta + 1 Hydra for a minimum-sized Infantry Platoon + Chimera.

(2) Picked up Sanctuary on my Inquisitor.

The first change was to allow me to use throw-away Troops to capture backfield objectives while advancing all 5 Veteran squads towards the enemy. The second change was basically to give myself a free win against Daemons in either of the first two scenarios. (This is something I typically do in all tournaments of 2k+ because it can almost guarantee a win against Daemons in objectives missions for a scant 15 points.)

My results:

Game 1: Massacre (+23)
Game 2: Minor Victory (+16)
Game 3: Major Victory (+19)

Rank: 1st place

Yep, I won the ‘Ard Boyz Semi-finals this time around (to my great surprise). A Fatecrusher army managed to take 2nd place and Jawaballs took 3rd with his mechanized Blood Angels. For my prize I chose… what else? More mech guard, of course. Why? Well, I expect that I’ll sell some of it off to fund my trip down to the NOVA Open…

Keep an eye out this week for some battle reports from the big day.

On the 16th I took a trip down to The Only Game in Town, located in Somerville, NJ. Though considerably further from my home than some other venues, I had attended a tournament here back in February and really liked the store, the TO, and the players. There’s a lot to be said for a group that can run a smooth tournament and it’s more than worth the extra 30 minutes on the interstate. At the previous tournament I had come with several competitive players from our store and took 1st, however the TO said that many of the competitive locals were attending the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, so I expected some stiffer competition. Surprisingly, the turnout was low with only 10 gamers, but there were definitely more heavy-hitters present than on the previous day.

Game 1

My first game would prove to be my most difficult and most satisfying. My opponent had a list that was extremely similar to mine, the main differences being that he took several plasmaguns on his veterans and had 3 Vendettas to my 6. In their place he had a fully decked out Executioner, an extra Veteran squad, and more infantry-based lascannons. We each had 4x melta Company Command, Vets in Chimeras, PBS, 2 Manticores, and an allied Inquisitor.

Our Emperor’s Tarots canceled out and we had a straight roll-off for first turn. I lost and kept my whole army in reserve, despite it being an objective scenario. I knew better than to deploy against such vast firepower (not to mention alpha striking demo vets) and expect to survive long enough to shoot back. He spent his first two turns advancing a pair of Chimeras (the Inquisitor’s ride + a Troop choice) and the Executioner towards a far objective while the rest of the army stayed put.

On the bottom of Turn 2 I rolled extraordinarily well for my reserves as all 3 squadrons of Vendettas, both Manticores, and two Chimeras arrived. His Master of the Fleet caused the skimmers to arrive on the opposite edge that I had wanted, which required me to shift to a more cautious strategy where I would attempt to ninja objectives on Turn 6 rather than blow half of his vehicles off the board with 14 embarked meltaguns. Here I admit a mistake (though it had little impact on the game): we were using the INAT FAQ (as per the TO) and I was unaware that my Astropath did not work when not on the board (I also later learned that Manticores were changed to function like multiple barrage weapons). Neither of us realized this until long after all of my reserves had arrived. I say that it made little difference because I had rolled 5’s and 6’s to bring on the Vendettas on Turn 2, which is where all of his firepower went. I believe it would have resulted in 1 Manticore and 1 Chimera not having arrived, which wouldn’t have changed things much, if at all. Furthermore, my Astropath arrived with the Vendettas so the modifiers would have canceled out on all subsequent turns.

My shooting was good, but not spectacular. I accomplished what I needed to do, which was destroy 2 Vendettas and stop the third from shooting while also shaking both Manticores. The rest of the game featured trading long-range shots as he slowly dismantled my flyers while I sank firepower into the breakaway force that went for the far objective, which I had just outflanked near. I eliminated this threat and he fell back to the further of his objectives on the fringes of his firebase.

With only 15 minutes to go we started Turn 5 and agreed we would not have time to start a 6th. He fired a few parting shots and hunkered down in cover on his 2 objectives. I used my remaining Vendetta to unload 3 lascannons and 2 heavy bolters into the exposed Veteran unit squatting on his far objective, then used the Psyker Battle Squad to force them from it. I secured the two objectives in my deployment zone with Chimeras while I advanced two more Chimeras into his firebase, braving dangerous terrain tests over the wreckage. I managed to get in there safely to contest his last objective. The remnants of my outflanking force grabbed the far objective and the game ended 3-0. Major victory for me.

Game 2

My second match was against an Eldar force ill-equipped for competitive play at 2500 points. My opponent had wished to take a bike Seer Council, however he didn’t have the models converted and had to take them on foot. The list also featured an Avatar, 3 squads of Dire Avengers, 2 units of Pathfinders, 1 large unit of Jetbikes, 1 unit of Fire Dragons, 1 unit of Striking Scorpions, 2 Fire Prisms, 1 Falcon, and 2 Wave Serpents (holding DA and Seer Council). I could be leaving something out, but you get the gist.

With little in the way of long-range firepower I was free to keep my distance and casually eliminate units that had no hope of reaching me without leaving the safety of their area terrain. The Falcon, Wave Serpents, and Jetbikes were held in reserve and the Scorpions outflanked. Upon arrival, the Seer Council’s ride went flat-out and used its Star Engines to gain another 12″, putting it right in my face. Because the unit had arrived from reserve, the Farseer in the council was unable to use Fortune due to the requirement that it be cast at the beginning of the turn. My Hydras brought down the skimmer easily by ignoring its cover save and a combination of storm eagle rockets and heavy flamers made short work of the unit. The Fire Dragons were killed in the same fashion. The Jetbikes  were driven off the board immediately after their arrival from a combination of Manticore fire and the Psyker Battle Squad.

At the end of the game I had scored over 2300 points with only a few pathfinders left alive. In return, I gave up about 300 points.

Game 3

The last game was tricky as I faced another uphill battle thanks to the design of scenario 3. Like many others, I had figured that my chances of squaring off against another mechanized army in the third round were good, but my hopes were dashed for the second day in a row as I found myself across the table from a Tyranid army.

The Tyranid list featured the following: Swarmlord with 2 Tyrant Guard, Hive Tyrant (dual MC devourers, +1 reserves) with 2 Tyrant Guard, 2 Tervigons, 2x 10 Termagants, 3x 5 Genestealers with toxin sacs, Deathleaper, 2x 2 Zoanthropes in Spore Pods, and 3 Trygons. Again, not a single unit moves more than 6″ in any phase so no bonus kill points. The silver lining, however, was that his Tyrant Guard counted as separate HQ units and were therefore worth 2 KPs each in addition to the Swarmlord and the Hive Tyrant, bringing his total to 22 versus my 45.

The Emperor’s Tarot worked against and I lost the roll to go first. My opponent decided to capitalize on his +2 bonus to reserves and keep everything off the table, outflanking all 3 units of Genestealers and a Tervigon and using deep strike deployment for the 3 Trygons and Zoanthropes in spore pods. This was a monumental mistake on his part due to an INAT FAQ entry that changes the rules for the Hive Tyrant and Swarmlord, making it so that their reserves bonuses (like the Astropath) do not function when the models are not on the table. I recognized the blunder immediately, but decided not to say anything. Most of the players didn’t seem to be aware that we were using the INAT FAQ until that day and my opponent had very clearly designed his entire list around using these reserves bonuses. Enforcing the rule would have given me a very distinct edge and was well within my rights, but it wouldn’t have made for a fun game.

I used my second turn to castle up in the center and arrange my Vendettas in such a formation that allowed me to have lascannons and heavy bolters pointing in every conceivable direction with my Inquisitor + Mystics embarked toward my left flank. Mechanized armies at 2500 points tend to be gigantic and a single unit of Mystics is always going to be inadequate to provide coverage for even half the army, nevermind all of it. I knew he would not risk deep striking anywhere near the Mystics so I put the majority of my meltaguns on the opposite flank, which is exactly where he brought in all 4 of his deep striking units. The Zoanthropes landed 2/4 shots and got through my flat-out save to shake a Vendetta. The Hive Tyrant and 1 Trygon failed to arrive.

On my turn, I was able to take down 1 full Trygon, wound the other, kill both Spore Pods, a unit of Zoanthropes, and a unit of Genestealers. The surviving Trygon was joined by the third on Turn 3 and killed a Chimera. Both were then brought down by massed lascannon and melta fire in the next shooting phase. We were roughly tied on kill points at this point.

By the end of Turn 4 I had a Tervigon and unit of Genestealers bearing down on my left and 20 Termagants, a Tervigon, and the Swarmlord a few inches away from my front line. There was nowhere left to run so I went aggressive and unloaded everything into, well, everything. The Swarmlord and his unit went down in a blaze of glory despite being in cover. On the left, my HQ unit put some melta wounds on the Tervigon, but couldn’t seal the deal. Being only S5 and WS3, I had planned on charging the Tervigon with my Company Command in order to tie it up for the remainder of the game. Unfortunately, a single Genestealer on that side managed to make 6 cover saves in a row. Rather than let the Genestealer get to my Chimeras, which remained stationary to fire lascannons, I multi-charged, hoping to kill the Genestealer and tie combat. No such luck. I lost, was run down, and freed up both units to wreak havoc next turn.

The Termagants, Genestealer, and Tervigon managed to take out a pair of my Vendettas. The Deathleaper appeared behind my lines and took out the PBS’s ride, earning 6 KP’s for the turn. Use my remaining meltaguns and lascannons to take down the Tervigons while multi-lasers and heavy flamers made short work of the Termagants. I hit the Deathleaper with a S8 blast from my very pissed-off PBS and he failed his 3+ cover save, inflicting instant death. My opponent hid his remaining models on Turn 6, a Hive Tyrant + 2 Guard and a single Termagant, to end the game. I claimed a minor victory, just one kill point shy of a major.

Aftermath

With 3 consecutive wins I was able to take 2nd place, 6 points behind a very capable Ork player with a hybrid list featuring some horde elements in addition to at least one Battlewagon, two units of Lootas, and a large contingent of Nob bikers. Third place was my final opponent with Tyranids.

It was another fun and successful tournament, this one awarding both prizes and passes to the semi-finals. With my ticket in-hand I feel pretty ready for the second round. Hopefully GW will learn from the train wreck that was mission design in the preliminaries and take a more mainstream route in semis.

Game 1

My first opponent had a mostly mechanized IG army (Vets in Chimeras, squadron of Punishers, 2 Manticores, 2 squadrons of 3 AC/HK Sentinels, 1 Vendetta) with an allied Inquisitor for the Psychic Hood (but not the Tarot) and a few units on foot, including two triple lascannon heavy weapon squads. (I should have written this up sooner because my memory of the list is a little hazy and is blurring together with the other IG force I played in the first game on Sunday.) Thanks to the Emperor’s Tarot, I won the roll-off and chose to go first, deploying everything as far forward of possible and gearing up for a potential alpha strike.

I suspect he hadn’t encountered alpha striking IG before because he deployed his heavy armor right at the front of his deployment zone allowing me to get a first turn charge with my demo Vets and destroy both vehicles with meltabombs. I managed to kill a few of my own models in the explosion, but it was more than worth it to cut out an expensive chunk of his anti-infantry firepower. His other heavy support choices were neutralized in the first turn as was his Vendetta. Multi-lasers from my Chimeras were enough to eliminate one lascannon team and force to the other fall back with the help of my Psyker Battle Squad.

It was a brutal first turn in which I eliminated all of his long-range firepower and the rest of the game was based on maneuvering for objectives. I think his big mistake was playing too cautiously, holding back his Chimeras until his Sentinels arrived from reserve (outflanking). This allowed me to dominate the midfield and basically dig in–he has to sacrifice firepower for mobility while I was able to sit back and wait for his last thrust, bringing all of my guns to bear in a coordinated fashion. We made it through all 6 turns in about an hour and a half and I won 4 objectives to 0. Massacre for 23 battle points (his HQ hid and survived).

Game 2

My second game was a blast, though I felt bad for my opponent because his list wasn’t at all suited to fight so many vehicles and we both knew it. He was playing Chaos with 5 squads of Plague Marines on foot, some with meltas and other with plasmaguns. A squad of Khorne Berserkers was transported by a possessed Land Raider. HQ’s included two Lash Daemon Princes and a Greater Daemon. Finally, there were a couple of Chosen units (also on foot), one with plasmaguns and the other with meltaguns.

With my ranged advantage I knew that I would win this game handily by simply staying back and letting my Vendettas and Manticores do all the work, which is exactly how the game played out. Even in cover, the Vendettas were knocking out or crippling a unit of Plague Marines each turn. The Daemon Princes were given some harassing fire early on and eliminated once they entered into threat range, as was the Greater Daemon. The Berserkers were kept in reserve so he could enter closer to my army rather than drive and take shots along the way, but I managed to eliminate it as soon as it arrived with some suicide melta vets. In the end I killed everything except for 3 Chosen models hiding in ruins on the other side of the board due to their arrival via outflanking on the wrong part of the battlefield. It was something along the lines of 2400 VPs to 300, earning me another 23 point massacre with an hour to go in the round.

Game 3

With such a small tournament it was easy to determine who my next opponent would be and I was not looking forward to the game. Of course, the army I’d be facing is the one and only list that it is virtually impossible for me to beat given the overwhelming stupid that was the third scenario.

My final opponent was running horde Orks with a total of 16 kill points in his list compared to mine at 45. Going into the tournament, most people were under the impression that it’s the difference in killpoints that matters in predicting who has the edge, but this is not entirely correct. Anyone who practiced the mission (or who played it in the event) knows that it came down to who could snipe more vehicles or mobile units than the other player. Given the very small margin for claiming a massacre (7+ KPs) one could get full points for the scenario by simply killing 3 Trukks or Rhinos or Land Speeders more than the other player. As long as both players have a few mobile assets, playing conservatively can put the match on equal footing as each attempts to knock out those particular units to the exclusion of all else.

Unfortunately, my opponent didn’t have a single thing in his army that moved more than 6″, so I had to score my points one at a time. If he hadn’t included 3 units of Kommandos in his list (including Snikrot) I probably would have pulled off a win, but no such luck. On top of that, he won the first turn. He knew what he was doing and was a good guy on top of it, so I don’t want to discredit him in any way. It was the single worst match-up I could have gotten, but it still required a savvy individual at the helm.

The game itself was fairly uneventful. Poor early rolling with my Manticores meant that I somehow killed nothing at all despite 5 ordnance blast templates being fired into a horde that spanned across the whole table. The rest of my guns weren’t able to put enough of a dent into one of the 30-man mobs containing the KFF Mek, which I had hoped to reduce to 10 and then hit with the PBS in order to eliminate the KFF save to everything on the right side of the table.

The Kommandos arrived and won the game as they were able to kill several vehicles and maintain that lead for the rest of the match. In retrospect, I could have tried to bubblewrap my tanks tightly with infantry to prevent them from being charged, but his burnas meant that they’d likely get fried away and open up holes to charge through anyway. There was really nothing I could do and I fought my hardest just to avoid being massacred, but couldn’t break the 9 point lead that he held over me. I lost by a massacre, but picked up 3 bonus objective points.

Aftermath

Despite the massacre in the third game I still managed to take third place in the tournament due to the small turnout. The Ork player took first, having won all three games (massacred, major, massacre–I think). Second place was taken by someone playing Space Marines, if I recall correctly.

Good store, nice players, great area. A++ would play again.

Why did I choose IG? Obviously it’s not for the models. The old school WW1 army men theme is fun, but not particularly interesting. Mostly it has to do with fielding lots of tanks and artillery. But that’s not the only reason.

When the IG book was released there was lots of rabble about how overpowered the army is, which is typical for any codex release, and then there were the contrarians who point out that everyone overestimates the potential of new armies which inevitably end up being balanced. I usually find myself arguing in defense of the latter, however I firmly believe that the IG codex is hard. Not just hard, not even just rock hard, but fucking titanium hard. This is one army that I don’t think is going to sink to the level of mediocrity. And it takes the mech metagame to a whole new level by scaling twice as well as any other army thanks to the copious vehicle squadron options.

My first attempt at the army was as follows:

HQ
175 – Company Command Squad (Astropath, meltagun x4, Chimera w/ HF)

TROOPS
155 – 10 Veterans (meltagun x3, Chimera w/ HF)
155 – 10 Veterans (meltagun x3, Chimera w/ HF)
135 – 10 Veterans (grenade launcher x2, Chimera w/ HF)
70 – 5 Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (meltagun x2)
70 – 5 Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (meltagun x2)

FAST ATTACK
130 – Vendetta Gunship
130 – Vendetta Gunship
130 – Vendetta Gunship

HEAVY SUPPORT
160 – Manticore
140 – Colossus
300 – 2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks

Total: 1750

From the very start I knew that the core of my army would be Veterans in Chimeras. The first draft had 4 units, but I nixed one in favor of IST after stealing borrowing the idea from Edwin’s list posted on Yes the Truth Hurts. The potential to use the Vendetta 24″ scout move to get an alpha strike against Land Raiders with IST meltaguns is just too good to pass up. Also, the obvious alternative was to use Hellhounds/Devil Dogs, however this would result in an army far too similar to my LS-heavy Vulkan marines and for the sake of diversity I chose to pass.

Unfortunately, my experience with IG so far has not conformed to my expectations. However, in my defense, I’ve only been able to get a scant handful of games in since assembling the list a month and a half ago. I have no qualms about retreating from a position in the face of contrary evidence and reasoning, but it’s not time to throw in the towel just yet. I’ve confidently been able to attribute each and every poor outcome to either mistakes in strategy or list building, both of which are correctable.

A brief run-down of my games thus far:

Game 1: IG versus Kris’s Salamanders

I expected this one to be a fairly even match because Kris is a very savvy player and he has an optimized list which can hold its own against IG, but it turned out that I was my own worst enemy. We randomly decided on Capture and Control with Spearhead deployment.

I won the initial roll-off and, given that it was an objective mission, opted to take second turn out of habit. This was a mistake that was subsequently compounded by electing to deploy my entire army on the board, rather than hold in reserve and take advantage of my Astropath.

The game opened with Kris using his pair of dakka predators to go 4/4 with penetrating hits from their autocannons on my Valkyries, crippling my return firepower. We managed to pummel each other until I was left with a just couple of IST’s to contest my own objective. Fortunately, I had also killed most of Kris’s Troops, so I barely managed to eek out a draw.

Lesson learned: Take first turn.

Game 2: IG versus Charlie’s Nob Bikers

Charlie’s Ork army has traditionally given my Salamanders a lot of trouble because of my reliance of Drop Pods, however I was able to turn the metatable on him this time around with my mech IG list. As predicted, my army completely stomped his Orks even with the unfavorable Dawn of War deployment.

The game was more or less over before it began. Charlie deployed his two Nob units and a Warboss while I held everything off the board, and he used his first turn to turbo-boost toward my board edge in order to limit the amount of shooting I’d be able to do before facing multi-charges. I brought in everything on the first turn and repeatedly tank shocked one Nob unit with Chimeras until it finally failed its Ld test. The other unit was subjected to two battlecannons, a Manticore, 9 twin-linked lascannons, and 10 meltaguns.

With Charlie’s core completely dismantled on the first turn, he threw in the towel.

Lesson learned: Mech IG > Orks.

Game 3: IG versus Bob’s Ultramarines

This match taught me more about the dynamics of my army’s tactics as opposed to general strategy (despite some truly abysmal rolling). For reference, it was an Annihilation mission with Pitched Battle deployment.

Bob’s army is led by Cassius and relies heavily on Tactical Squads in Rhinos (and one in a Drop Pod). It also features a melta Dread in a second Drop Pod and some bikes. I think Bob reads this so perhaps he can chime in with the exact list.

In any event, I again relied on habits developed by years of playing Space Marines and was overly aggressive with my infantry. Instead of listening to my own advice and staying put in my transports I got out on several occasions to maximize firepower and extend my melta range. In each and every case this turned out to be a mistake, and Bob was smart to charge even lone tactical marines into full units of Veterans, each time winning, breaking, and killing my units in the sweeping advance. Without any counter-attack option, I was at his mercy. I ended up losing by about three points.

Lesson learned: Stay in the damn tanks.

Also: Not having counter-attack is bad.

Following my match with Bob I decided to alter my list, albeit slightly.

The decision was made to trade my Astropath for a Master of the Fleet since I generally want to be taking first turn. If I will the roll-off I’ll go first, and my opponents will likely give me the first turn in objective-based missions if they win. I imagine many enemies will attempt to mitigate the damage received by my opening volley by holding their units in reserve, the act of which is severely punished by my MotF.

By applying a -1 modifier to reserve rolls, the Master increases the likelihood of enemy reserves arriving piecemeal, which I should have no problem dealing with in most situations (see a forthcoming battle report against James’s Crimson Fists for an example). While I think the Astropath is excellent (in larger games I would take both), the MotF fits my build better.

Game 4: IG versus Matt’s Chaos (dual lash)

Full battle report in the works. Stay tuned.

Game 5: IG versus Fareed’s Space Marines (Crimson Fists)

Fareed plays a a Drop Pod army that wasn’t really optimized for tournament play until more recently. There are still some tweaks to be made, but this list was much stronger than its previous incarnation. It features Kantor leading 2 full  Sternguard units loaded with meltas and combi-meltas, 3 Tactical Squads, and an Ironclad in pods. For some mobile firepower it also includes 3 Attack Bikes with (MM x2, HB x1).

The mission was Seize Ground with Pitched Battle deployment. I won the roll-off and gave Fareed first turn while keeping my army in reserve in order to avoid losing half of my vehicles to meltaguns on the first turn (both Sternguard units were to be separated into combat squads). My reserve rolls without the Astropath were poor, however I’m not sure it was a bad strategy. 12 point-blank meltaguns would have been bad news on turn 1.

I managed to kill almost all of Fareed’s army, however he managed to hide a tac squad behind a large terrain feature and squat on an objective. I managed to secure my own, and a third was contested by a handful of surviving marines and my Imperial Storm Troopers who had just been shot out of their airplane. Result: Tie game.

I made some mistakes, but in general I was forced to play cautiously because my lack of any assault troops to mop up units and intimidate basic infantry from throwing grenades at my tanks and charging headlong into my puny guys.

Lesson learned: Even Imperial Guard needs assault units.

Next up: battle report for my game against Matt’s dual lash Chaos army, giving my IG some close combat punchiness, and laying the smackdown on James and his Crimson Fists.

Game 2: Dan (Chaos Troopzilla) vs. Kris (Vulkan bikers)

Kris and I came to the tournament together and with only 3 players in the tournament it was inevitable that we’d play each other. So, we sucked it up and made the most of it.

Kris’s list is dead-hard and I knew I was fighting an uphill battle from the get-go because his list could only potentially yield 26 kill points, whereas mine yields 36. More importantly, each of his Troop units are fast and pack a ridiculous amount of anti-tank, and we both knew he could afford to send units on suicide missions if it meant taking out my heavy and elite choices.

His list was as follows:

Vulkan
Captain – Bike, combi-flamer, relic blade

5 Assault Terminators – Thunder hammer and storm shield, Land Raider Redeemer w/ multi-melta
5 Assault Terminators – Thunder hammer and storm shield (in LRR)

5 Space Marine Bikers (Troops) – Meltagun x2, combi-melta, Attack Bike with multi-melta
5 Space Marine Bikers (Troops) – Meltagun x2, combi-melta, Attack Bike with multi-melta
5 Space Marine Bikers (Troops) – Meltagun x2, combi-melta, Attack Bike with multi-melta
5 Space Marine Bikers (Troops) – Meltagun x2, Attack Bike with multi-melta
5 Space Marine Bikers (Troops) – Meltagun x2, Attack Bike with multi-melta

2 Land Speeders – Multi-melta, heavy flamer
2 Land Speeders – Multi-melta, heavy flamer

Land Raider Redeemer – Multi-melta

I lost the roll-off and was made to take second turn. I deployed a single Rhino containing Plague Marines and a Sorcerer towards the right side of the board as my 2 Troops + HQ. There was very large piece of impassible terrain in the center, so I had hoped to make it look like I was going to castle in the corner and bait Kris into bringing his army in on the far right after which I would then bring my army on the opposite side in order to take advantage of my battlecannon range.

Unfortunately, he didn’t fall for it and came on at the center, advancing behind the building and his Land Raiders. I brought my army in slightly to the left, but primarily behind the building opposite my enemies, hoping to create a bottleneck and mitigate my own losses. I managed to blow up a Land Speeder and stun another by shooting through a building, but other than that the shooting phase was uneventful thanks to Night Fight and short-range weaponry.

Turn 2 opened up with Kris bringing a bike squad forward and turning my Defiler into a smoldering crater. The other speeder squadron popped out to kill another Defiler, but only managed to damage it.

The rest of the game consisted of trading units back and forth across a giant clusterfuck in the middle of the board, which did not feature a favorable exchange rate for yours truly:

Meltaguns popped a raider, Terminators pile out, get lashed forward and killed by Berserkers.

Remaining Berserkers get charged by more Terminators and die, then the Terminators get charged by more Berserkers and also die. Vulkan then finishes off the last of the zerkers on the bottom of turn 6.

Bike units suicide into my deployment zone and kill a Dreadnought, then get killed by meltagun fire.

Defiler charges the immobilized Land Raider and kills it, then gets killed by bikers.

And so on.

The game ended with Kris ahead by 5 points, enough to get a minor victory but just short of the 6 required for a major. Kudos to Kris for a game well-played, and for giving me my 2nd loss over the course of 9 tournaments since May 2008. (The other was to Matt back at the infamous Brothers Grim tournament of February, 2009.)

Game 3: Zach (Battlewagon Orks) vs. Kris (Vulkan bikers)

I did document this game through pictures, but the silliness of the rolling really eclipses the strategy and tactics employed by both sides, so I’ve decided that it isn’t really worth writing up. When Kris can’t kill any Battlewagons with 10 meltaguns, 5 combi-meltas, and 11 multi-meltas then it’s just not in the cards.

The game ended with both players controlling an objective, however Kris beat Zach handily in kill points, earning a minor victory for himself.

And, by popular demand, pictures:

My first opponent was Zach, a fellow Dakka-ite, who was running Battlewagon Orks led by Ghazghkull using a fairly standard configuration. His army was roughly as follows:

Ghazghkull (in Battlewagon with Nobs)
Mekboy – KFF (in Battlewagon with Nobs)

12 Lootas (in Battlewagon)
12 Lootas (in Battlewagon)
Nob Squad – Mega armor, kombi-flamers, power klaws, Trukk

Nob Squad (Troops) – Heavy armor, Painboy, Battlewagon w/ boarding plank, big shoota x2
20 Slugga Boyz – Nob w/ klaw (in Battlewagon)
12 Shoota Boyz – Nob w/ klaw, Trukk
12 Slugga Boyz – Nob w/ klaw, Trukk

Deffkopta – TL rockets
Deffkopta – TL rockets
Deffkota – TL rocket, buzzsaw

Battlewagon – Boarding plank, big shoota x2
Battlewagon – Boarding plank, big shoota x2
Battlewagon – Boarding plank, big shoota x2

We used the round 1 scenario, Land Grab (modified Capture and Control + Annihilation), and deployed directly across from one another on the left half of the board. I kept my objectives as close together as possible, knowing that I could easily castle them with the huge volume of vehicles I was fielding. Zach set one objective across from me and the other on the opposite side of the board.

I won the roll and gave Zach first turn. As in my practice games, I tried to steal the initiative but failed to do so. He came straight at me with everything while the Lootas blasted away at my Defilers, destroying a weapon. A Trukk full of Ork Boyz immobilized itself immediately on some difficult terrain, but the others made it through.

I responded by turbo-boosting one squad of melta bikes towards the Loota Battlewagons, which were adjacent to one another on the right side of the left half of the board at his board edge. The other unit went after Ghazghkull’s wagon, but failed to do anything. I exploded the other Trukk full of boyz with a battlecannon shell, causing it to move into Defiler charge range with the ramshackle rule. The surviving boyz were easily beaten in close combat and then swept and the Defilers consolidated back to where they were at the beginning of the turn.

Zach began turn 2 by disembarking his Nobs + Ghazghkull from the wagon and shooting at the bikes. This ended up being a huge mistake seeing as I failed 3/5 armor saves, eliminating the squad and leaving the super unit with nothing to charge. The Meganob Trukk zoomed around my left flank, though I was successful in creating a traffic jam that would prevent the unit from getting within charge range.

My second turn was huge, starting with the destruction of a Loota wagon with my bikes. I lashed Ghazghkull’s unit forward, creating a wall of Nobs in front of Ghaz within a narrow corridor created by vehicles, which prevented his character from being able to get into base contact during the assault, unless he was willing to pile wounds onto all of his power klaw nobs (he wasn’t). The other wagon filled with boyz was destroyed by meltaguns from Plague Marines, and the boyz who fell out got smashed by ordnance.

The assault phase was huge for me, as I charged both units of Berserkers into the Nob squad and linked the combat to the boyz using 2 Defilers and a Dreadnought. I won combat handily, killing almost all of the Nobs and several boyz, the rest of which were killed by combat resolution (thanks to Fearlessness being conveyed by their Waaargh!).

To add to the fun, I charged my biker unit into the 7 Lootas who survived the exploding wagon. They beat the hell out of me, winning combat and making me fall back. Smooth move, playa.

Zach kept at me with his Meganobs, getting the charge on my Plague Marines and Sorcerer who had to disembark in order to get melta range on the Battlewagon in the preceeding turn. He killed 4/5 marines and my Sorcerer was unscathed. The other combat saw the demise of everything but Ghazghkull, who made 4/4 5+ saves.

Details after this are a little fuzzy, but I managed to kill Ghazghkull and then beat the Meganobs in combat without losing my Sorcerer, then kill them in the sweeping advance. The Deffkoptas outflanked but didn’t really do much. My opponent conceded at the end of Turn 4, giving me the massacre. We abbreviated the next two turns to see if I would have been able to claim extra battle points, and I was able to get 23 of a possible 24.

Perhaps as a result of the Grand Tournament season being canceled, there has been a marked increase in the frequency of local 40k tournaments in the New York area over the past year. But even preceding the slew of local competitions the players in our club (Battle for Salvation) had really begun to step up their game, bringing leaner and meaner lists with firmer handling of the rules and better application of tactics. When we aren’t matched against each other we tend to take home trophies.

There have been a number of times when we’ve played one another only to knock ourselves out of the running, the most famous example of which was when I played all three rounds against fellow club members (none of us ended up placing). To avoid this at ‘Ard Boyz, our club decided to split up amongst 3 different hosting locations.

• Matt, James, and Bobby (playing Chaos, SM, and IG) went East to play in CT, where they took home 1st, 3rd, and 4th place, respectively. Matt tells me that the guy who placed 3rd can’t make it to the semi-finals, so that means Bobby is in.

• Charlie went solo over the Tappan Zee to Toywiz where he captured 3rd with his Space Marines (+ Grey Knight allies).

• Kris and I went to Maplewood Hobby, also in Jersey. I took 1st and he took 2nd (of 3 total, lol).

Overall, every single player from our club who went to the tournament is going to the second round. I guess we’ve all been eating our Wheaties.

So, the purpose of this post? I am proud of our club members and they all deserve accolades for their performance, even if it is still only the first round. Tonight is our weekly gaming night at the Salvation Army, so I’m sure there will be lots of stories to share.

(Horn-tooting over.)

On Friday morning, Charlie brought his boards over to my apartment and we squared off against each other in the Drawn and Quartered mission slated for game 3 of the upcoming tournament. The scenario is a modified version of Capture and Control using Spearhead deployment and kill points as a secondary objective to determine the extent of victory (massacre/major/minor). I can’t help but think that the title of the scenario is a good-humored jab at the writers of Capture and Control, which is frequently referred to as the “draw” mission. The modifications are great though, and it is hands-down my favorite of the first round.

I played my Troopzilla list with some slight modifications, swapping out extra armor and heavy flamers for twin-linked lascannons on both Chaos Dreadnoughts and trimming some fat from the CSM units.

Charlie’s army used the Space Marine codex as its primary, but made heavy use of Daemonhunters allies. He was rocking the following list (roughly):

Grand Master – Psychic hood, psycannon

Chaplain

5 Grey Knight Terminators (retinue) – Incinerator (x2?)

10 Grey Knights – Psycannon x2

10 Grey Knights – Psycannon x2

10 Tactical Space Marines – Lascannon, meltagun, Rhino

10 Tactical Space Marines – Lascannon, meltagun, Rhino

3 Attack Bikes (one squad) – Multimelta x3

Land Raider

Land Raider Redeemer

Land Raider Redeemer

I don’t have pictures of the game, so instead I’ll just cherry-pick some of the important parts in order to highlight the worthwhile tactics.

Deployment

I won the roll and chose to go second, with the intention of attempting to steal the initiative (which I failed to do).

My army has no fast elements apart from the bikes, and they’re just suiciding meltaguns so I don’t expect them to survive past turn 3. Because of my speed (or lack thereof), I need to commit my units early on and in response to what my opponent places. This was especially important for this game because S6 Grey Knight Terminators + Grand Master have no way of dealing with AV12 walkers. By allowing him to go first I risked eating 4 lascannons plus whatever the Redeemers could throw at me, but I needed to know where those GKT’s were going before I set down my Dreads and Defilers.

Charlie spaced out his LRs evenly with the standard variant in the center, set further back. The LRR with GKT’s was on my left while the other LRR with standard GK’s was on the far right. Noting this deployment, I set up all 5 walkers opposing the GKT LRR, with the intention of rushing it and then making the Grand Master + expensive retinue useless. I also stuck a unit of Plague Marines + Sorcerer and Chaos Space Marines on this flank to secure the objective. The Berserkers and everything else went on the right so they could overwhelm his outnumbered forces and at least contest the second objective through prolonged MEQ combat.

The Game (briefly)

Charlie’s first turn of shooting was uneventful, save for exploding a single Defiler. He advanced both Redeemers and moved the bikes up 12″, out of LOS (turbo-boosting would have required an 18″ move, which would have taken him right into Defiler charge range).

I opened my turn with what was probably my smartest play of the entire game. I moved one of my bike squads up 12″ directly towards his Attack Bikes and then managed to get a charge off on them around the corner of some terrain. Charlie had expected me to go after the LRR since the unit had 2 meltaguns, but I knew that neutralizing the bikes would convey a much larger advantage.

From the start of the game, I knew the bikes would be a pain in the ass. S8, AP1, 24″ range means they don’t even need the 2D6 penetration to reliably kill 1 vehicle per turn, and there’s no way I’ll be able to charge them. Charlie is an excellent player, so I knew he’d be smart enough to keep them on the flank and force me to dedicate units to killing them, which would reduce the amount of support I could lend to the real action. By tying them up I could extend the movement of my walkers via assault moves and prevent myself from being shot. Better yet, Charlie couldn’t do anything about it without letting out his full GM+retinue to deal with the threat, which I would then slaughter with Defilers and Dreadnoughts.

On Turn 2 Charlie decided it was time to get the hell out of dodge, so he took his LRR over to assist the other LRR, which was about to get hit with a whole lot of melta. Shooting was fairly ineffective again, with a few stun/shaken results against Defilers and Rhinos alike. I then popped his LRR, lashed the GKs inside, then killed a bunch with a battlecannon shot. The unit went to ground, but still took heavy losses.

Charlie retaliated by bringing his GM+retinue to bear on my Chaos Space Marines and bikers who had taken out the LRR. He easily dispatched both units, then took a counter-charge from both units of Berserkers. The Chaplain+GKs joined the fray soon after, but I was ultimately victorious, leaving me with about 7 Berserkers left (in 2 different units).

During this time Charlie’s other GKs mounted up in the LR (they had been deployed on foot to shoot their psycannons at Rhino) and moved toward my left objective, with my Defilers, CSM’s, and PM’s waiting. His Rhinos remained in the backfield just firing lascannons, which was a serious blunder. Had they moved up and supported his GKs they might have been able to level the playing field against the exposed Berserkers.

We had to end the game a little early due to a prior engagement of mine, but the outcome was pretty clear by the end of Turn 5 and my opponent conceded defeat. We were both playing these lists for the first time, and it was a well-played game overall.

Charlie is easily one of the best players in our club. His only weakness is perhaps confidence in his abilities, which probably stems from his lack of tournament experience. Fortunately, our club has some very capable players, so he’s a lot better prepared than he thinks. While I think previous iterations of his list were superior, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Charlie placing in the top 3 on game day by virtue of his tactical acumen.

My army list:

Click here.

My opponent’s army (roughly):

Hive Tyrant
Hive Tyrant – wings, twin-linked devourer, BS 4, etc.

Carnifex (elite)
Carnifex (elite)
Carnifex (elite)

6 Genestealers – re-roll wounds
6 Genestealers – re-roll wounds
6 Genestealers – scuttlers, re-roll wounds
6 Genestealers – scuttlers, re-roll wounds
8 Termagaunts

Carnifex (heavy) – T7, tusks, etc.
Carnifex (heavy) – T7, tusks, etc.
2 Zoanthropes

Well, this game was an interesting one both on and off the field. I was dreading this mission since I have a large number of KPs, three of which are absurdly easy to score, and Dawn of War meant that opponents would be more likely to hold everything in reserve, leaving me nothing to attack on my first turn drop pod assault.

Fortunately, I was pitted against HQ Club Jeff’s Nidzilla army, a matchup which is typically a walk in the park for forces packing lots mobility and meltaguns. Sweetening the deal even further was the fact that it was a close-combat based Nidzilla list, rather than the more formidable shooty version.

I say that the match was interesting because Kris and I had spent some time talking to Jeff about 40k, particularly “top-tier” lists. We tried to explain that while Nidzilla isn’t terrible, it is no longer a major contender anymore on the tournament scene due to changes in the metagame, however after meeting considerable resistance we decided it wasn’t worth it. In lieu of conversation, I was afforded the opportunity to drive the point home up close and personal in the third round.

Jeff won the roll-off and chose to go first, deploying two units of Genestealers and his walking Hive Tyrant far forward, hoping to take advantage of the Night Fight rules in effect for the first turn. Normally I choose to keep everything in reserve, however I would need every turn of shooting I could get against this list, so I chose to move my speeders and Vindicators on to the board on the first turn. The Terminators remained in reserve so they could deep strike near the Drop Pods, which I knew would be an unresistable source of KPs.

The Tyranids advanced at the top of Turn 1 and I move on to the board, unloading 4 multimeltas into the Tyrant, causing 3 wounds. My pods came down as far back as could be done safely and arrived side by side near the center of the board, safe from outflanking units. I chose to set them down a considerable distance from the speeders so that Jeff would be forced to either split his forces or come at a diagonal, which would buy me another round of shooting. I knew this strategy would work well because the only fast units in his army were the Genestealers, which I knew I would have no problem eliminating. After bringing them down I could exploit his weakness (speed) by consolidating my forces on the right side of the board to crush his army piecemeal.

My opponent brought two squads of Genestealers out into the open, later informing me that it was part of his cunning strategy to bait me. I gladly took the bait, using my LS heavy flamers to score 2 KPs, trading two speeders from separate squadrons in return.

Turn 3 started out with Jeff bringing in an outflanking Genestealer unit which was prompted shot down by the combined arms of a Vindicator and my third squad of Tactical Marines along with Vulkan (via pod). The Canifexes, however, were getting dangerously close and I was running out of room to back up.

Everything continued to advance on Turn 4 and one of the two fexes on the left side were now within range of my Drop Pod. It charges and destroys the pod without much effort. Here I make a strategic blunder in forgetting about the second squad of outflanking stealers–instead of moving to the right, I move Vulkan and his unit to the left to get shots off on the Carnifex, scoring 2 wounds. On the other side of the board, my Terminators come in and spread out so as to block access to the other Drop Pods by the Carnifexes and Hive Tyrant. This prevents a multi-charge and buys me time to kill the MCs before they can score free KPs.

Turn 5 is where the game changes. While I’ve been ahead in KPs all game, my situation has been precarious. I have a lot of dangerous things which I’ve been unable to stop early on due to the loss of too many multimeltas on the Land Speeders, so now I’ve got to deal with them in between assaults. The last of the Genestealers arrive on my left flank again and charge into Vulkan and friends. Fortunately, they roll poorly and I make many armor saves, leaving me with only 2 dead. Vulkan rolls well, skewering 3 bugs, while the Veteran Sergeant with his power fist stomps another. Believe it or not, I actually win combat. Here’s where the demeanor of my opponent changes drastically, and he goes from smug to vulgar, constantly cursing and pitching small fits.

On the other side, the Hive Tyrant shoots into the Terminators, hitting all 12 shots and wounding 11. I manage to beat the odds and only fail 1 save. More cursing, yelling, and fit pitching. The subsequent close combat is where my rolling really shines though. The HT and both fexes charge in. HT goes first and scores a few wounds, but I make 3 or 4 invulnerable (3+) saves. The fexes and my Terminators go simultaneously, and I score 6 wounds, smiting one Carnifex (previously wounded twice by missile launchers) and put 2 wounds on both of the other MCs. The Carnifexes hit and wound on the odds, but I manage to make all saves. With 5 Assault Terminators remaining, I win combat by a large margin.

Seeing how distraught and upset my opponent has become, I actually apologize for rolling so spectacularly and try to sympathize with his position. I know exactly how it feels to play a good game and have the dice turn on you, and how annoying it is when you have zero power over the situation. He didn’t really want to hear any of it and was content to curse and complain–at this point I just wanted to wrap up the game as quickly as possible.

Bottom of Turn 5. Vulkan mops up the remaining Genestealers and I score another KP. The Terminators finish off both of the remaining MCs, but lose a man in the process. Tactical Squads behind the Assault Terminators rapid fire into a Carnifex on the left and bring it down, but not before taking out a Vindicator.

A 3 is rolled to continue, but the game is already over. We go through the motions and Jeff scores another KP, but nothing can change the outcome at this point. At the end of my turn the tally is Salamanders: 10, Tyranids: 5. I score my third and final victory of the tournament.

Despite my opponent’s behavior, I sympathized with his plight and gave him a 4/5 on sportsmanship. Unfortunately, he decided to take his bitterness out on me and docked me points. And then talk shit about me to everyone withint earshot. Oh well. I’ve played at many, many tournaments and this is the first time I’ve ever had to play against That Fucking Guy, so I guess I was due.

My army list:

Click here.

My opponent’s army (roughly):

Daemon Prince – Mark of Tzeentch, Warp Time, Doombolt, Bolt of Change, Wings
Chaos Sorcerer – Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission

4 Terminators – Combi-melta, power weapons, some other stuff
5 Terminators – Mark of Slaanesh, lightning claws, some other stuff

10 Chaos Space Marines – Rhino, lascannon, plasmagun
7 Plague Marines – Rhino, meltagun x 2, power fist
6 Plague Marines – Rhino, meltagun x 2, power fist

Chaos Land Raider
2 Obliterators

My opponent was a local gamer named Burt who plays a competitive list that suffers from somewhat of an identity crisis, seemingly unable to commit to one method of play or another. It certainly isn’t a bad list, and I was nervous having seen it deployed on the other side of the table. Chaos is my worst match-up for a number of reasons, first and foremost being my lack of psychic defense. Luckily, I only had to fear one lash this game.

Burt won the roll-off and wisely chose to go second. We each set the objectives up in our respective corners (but 6″ away from a board edge, as per the tournament rules). Burt deployed his forces mostly in the backfield, with the exception of the Land Raider and the larger squad of Plague Marines accompanied by the Sorcerer which were deployed along his board edge, but smack in the middle–close enough to support his troops, and still able to make a bee-line for the objective.

Most standard Chaos armies have a difficult time properly castling due to the high cost (and therefore low number) of their units. Because Burt had to divide his attention (and resources) between both objectives, he had to spread out. This provided me the opportunity to set my pods down pretty much wherever I wanted on the first turn.

On turn 1, I dropped my two pods + Vulkan right in the middle of his forces and separated into combat squads. I knew I would be taking heavy casualties, however Burt’s army’s weakness was plain to me. In order to win this game all I would need to do is take out his transports and pray he doesn’t deep strike his reserve Terminators near my objective. The first part of the strategy would be easy given the number of deep striking nastiness I have, but the second was a huge gamble. I planned on securing my own objective by walking on my third squad of Tactical Marines and sending the pod down empty.

My first turn of shooting was terrible. I missed both meltagun shots on his Plague Marine Rhino, despite being twin-linked. My other unit was able to take down the vanilla CSM Rhino (penetrating 6). The counter attack was fierce, but Burt chose to have most of his army shoot at me with rapid fire weapons rather than assault, allowing me to remove casualties in such a way to place his DP and Terminators out of charge range.

The big mistake he made was taking the bait; he sent his other Plague Marines and Terminators back towards his corner in order to assist in wiping out my scoring units. At that point he had over-committed his forces and I knew he would never be able to make it to my objective. Game, set, match!

Turn 2 started off well and I got slightly over half of my reserves. The Terminators came down in the thick of things ready to hammer some Plague Marines or take out the Obliterators due to the threat they presented to my speeders. The speeders themselves focused on taking out the remaining Rhinos, but failed to prevent the PMs’ escape. Fortunately the solo speeder was able to explode the Land Raider. Even better, Vulkan and his power fist buddy smashed through an entire squad of 6 PMs near the objective in a single round of combat. Take that, FNP.

Burt also got his reserves on Turn 2 and brought the Terminators down on his side of the board. This left my objective wide open for my remaining Tactical Squad to casually seize when they arrived. We battled it out in Burt’s corner and he killed most of what I had, but I was successful in killing his scoring units (and making sure the last was too far away to matter).

For posterity, I zoomed 2 separate Land Speeders within 3″ of the objective on Turn 5. We rolled a 2 and the game came to an end. I controlled an objective and held several table quarters, earning me the full 19 points to my opponent’s 5.

My army list:

Click here.

My opponent’s army (roughly):

Lord Commissar

Company Command Squad with Regimental Standard

2 Infantry Platoons, each with multiple Infantry Squads, Special Weapons Teams, and 2 Heavy Weapon Teams (3x lascannon) each

Veterans with Harker

Leman Russ Battle Tank (heavy bolter on sponsons and lascannon hull)

Leman Russ Battle Tank (heavy bolter on sponsons and lascannon hull)

My first opponent was Matt from the Ordo Malleus club over in Rockland County, NY. For a young guy, I have to say that he was impressively familiar with some of the nuances of tactics, though he made some serious mistakes during his deployment that decided the outcome of the game before it even began. These mistakes combined with an extremely unfavorable matchup (infantry guard doesn’t stand a chance against massed heavy flamers) resulted in decisive victory in my favor.

Five objectives (the unpainted Wood Elf archers) were scattered around the middle of the board. My opponent’s anti-tank was limited to four triple-lascannon heavy weapons teams, so I knew I had to make them a priority. Without these guns he would have no way to deal with my Land Speeders which would then fry huge numbers of guardsmen.

I won the initial roll and opted to go second, since my army relies on getting Drop Pods into position and using the locator beacons for precision deep striking. I was afraid he might choose to hold everything in reserve, but instead he deployed his entire infantry army (+ 2 Leman Russes). The large blocks of impassible terrain caused him to deploy his army in 3 distinct sections, each unable to draw line of sight to or support one another. This mistake allowed me to concentrate the bulk of my forces on the largest block (the middle) without fear of retribution.

Two pods came down Turn 1 filled with Vulkan and Tactics Squads who then split off into combat squads. The bolters and Vulkan’s heavy flamer decimated the mob of guardsmen and lascannon teams in the center, leaving little left to put the hurt on my marines. Unfortunately, the LRBT shrugged off my point blank meltagun shot and was in a good position to kill infantry, however fortune smiled upon me and he scattered the shell off into some nearby foliage.

My Vindicators advanced cautiously on the right flank with the intention of putting wounds on the lascannon team and hoping for failed cover saves. I managed to get a shell off on the first turn that would kill 2 bases, but would lose the tank to the survivor. Good thing I brought a spare! The other Vindicator single-handedly killed the rest of the flank over the next 3 turns.

On Turn 2 the Land Speeders arrived and they began their reign of terror on the T3, 5+ Sv guardsmen and special weapons teams. Some marines fell to lasgun fire, but the meltaguns and power fists survived and proved enough to destroy the Russ that had previously defied the Emporer’s finest. Vulkan ended up rampaging through infantry, killing over 30 models before finally getting beat down by rifle butts on Turn 5.

Once the middle had been emptied I was able to throw all of my weight towards the remaining models on the left side of the board, who still held an objective. Matt’s wildcard was a Veteran Squad led by the special character Harker, however they didn’t show up until Turn 4 and were quickly cut down by a speeder. The Terminators also arrived on Turn 4 and sealed the deal on the left flank, stomping an infantry squad and using the massacre move to move within charge range of the lascannons hunkered down in the corner.

At this point my opponent conceded the game and we tallied up points. I had managed to get the win and also all of the secondary objectives, earning a total of 19 points for the round.

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