This weekend was the first annual Minicon Indy
GT in Raleigh NC, organized by GBF (Steve). I had never been to a
GT, but I've attended a lot of local tournaments, and I have to say that this is by far one of the best organized events I've seen. The terrain was also incredible. Steve and co. really did a great job.
My list:
Canoness with book, blessed weapon, inferno pistol, cloak of
St. Aspira, litanies of faith
5 Celestians (retinue) with 2x meltagun, immolator
5 Celestians with 2x meltagun, immolator
5 Celestians with 2x meltagun, immolator
9 Battle sisters with 2x meltagun +
VSS with book, rhino
9 Battle sisters with flamer, heavy flamer +
VSS with book, rhino
9 Battle sisters with flamer, heavy flamer +
VSS with book, rhino
9 Battle sisters with flamer, heavy flamer +
VSS with book, rhino
Exorcist
Exorcist
Exorcist
Additional pictures: http://gallery.me.com/jnorrell#100049
These are pictures of lots of armies and some from my first two games, not just pictures of my army.
Scoring:
Missions are taken from the rulebook. A major win is defined as holding more than twice as many objectives as your opponent in objective missions, and as obtaining at least 4 more
kp than your opponent in annihilation.
0 for a loss
5 for a draw
10 for a win
+3 for a major win
+3 for destroying all your opponent's troops
+2 for destroying your opponent's highest cost
HQ
+2 for holding the most table quarters
-1 for losing all your troops
-1 for losing your highest cost
HQ
-1 for controlling fewer table quarters
Game 1
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Spearhead
Opponent: Space Wolves
Wolf lord on bike
Venerable dreadnought in drop pod
5 Wolf guard terminators with battle leader in drop pod
8 Grey hunters in drop pod
8 Grey hunters in drop pod
8 Blood claws in rhino
3 Blood claw bikes with wolf guard leader
Whirlwind
Whirlwind
I won the roll-off and made my opponent go first. He set up his whirlwinds, bikes, bike lord and blood claws; I held everything in reserve. I wanted some his pods to land before I came on the board, but that didn't work exactly as I had hoped. He surged forward and dropped pretty close to my board edge, so I was really cramped coming on. With 10 tanks, it's easy to get in a bit of a traffic jam. This turned out to be a disappointing game. He racked up a lot of kill points by destroying my tanks, and I left several of his units with only a few models left. I think if we had played another turn I could have won, but the game ended after a very disappointing round of shooting and he beat me by 1
kp. Neither of us were able to score any bonus points, so he took 10 points and I took 0. I definitely have to credit my opponent with playing well, though. He consistently used his rhino and his pods to box me in and restrict my movement, and that really hurt.
Game 2
Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Dawn of War
Opponent: Imperial Fists (old Marine codex)
Captain with fist
9 man Command squad, including champion and apothecary
Reclusiarch in terminator armor
5 Terminators
Dreadnought with
tl lascannon, missile launcher
10 Tactical marines with heavy bolter
10 Tactical marines with heavy bolter
10 Tactical marines with flamer
5 Tactical marines with flamer
5 Scouts
8 Assault marines with fist
10 Devestators with 4x missile launcher
My opponent went first, so I kept everything off the board and rolled in on my first turn. During this game I made two critical mistakes. First, I waited too long to start focusing on the objective. My objective was secure, but his was up high and I could never have reached it, so I had to shoot his marines off of it. I wanted my exorcists to help me take down terminators, the dreadnought and the horde of marines coming at me, but I should have let my girls handle them, even though they would have taken more casualties, and focused the exorcists on killing the tactical squad that was holding his objective. I'm new to Sisters; I've always played mech Eldar, and seizing objectives with that army requires that you keep your tanks alive so that you can make end-of-game grabs. Sisters are different, and I need to start thinking about the objective earlier. Second, I again had traffic jam problems: I like keeping my units close together so that they can support one another, but I needed to learn to spread out more than I was doing. The game basically played out as a wave of marines crashing against the rock of battle sisters, so there weren't many marines left at the end, but the ones that remained were standing on the objective in my opponent's deployment zone, so the game was a tie. I got 4 bonus points for killing his
HQ and controlling more table quarters, so the score was 9-3.
Game 3
Mission: Seize Ground
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Opponent: Imperial Guard
Junior Officer with 4 guardsmen
2x Anti-tank squad with lascannons
1x Fire support squad with heavy bolters
1x Fire support squad with autocannons
5 Grenadiers with 2x meltagun, chimera
5 Grenadiers with grenade launcher, plasma gun, chimera
Infantry platoon command squad with 4x flamer, drop troops
Infantry squad with grenade launcher, missile launcher, drop troops
Infantry squad with grenade launcher, missile launcher, drop troops
Infantry squad with grenade launcher, missile launcher, drop troops
Hellhound
Hellhound
Basilisk
Lemun Russ battle tank
Lemun Russ demolisher
I won the roll-off and decided to go first. My opponent had a lot of firepower and I thought I would try to neutralize a bit of it before everything came crashing down. I spread out a bit more, but I kept my exorcists in front and my AV11 vehicles in back. On my turn I moved forward. The exorcists fired ineffectually (rats), and everything else not in cover popped smoke. My opponent's first turn of shooting was considerably better. His basilisk destroyed the immolator with my canoness (thank God there's no more ordnance damage table, he rolled a 6!), and the rest of his shooting took out a rhino and an exorcist, and shoot a second exorcist. Ugh. My second turn I moved forward and did little else. My canoness and her squad, now stranded ran for cover. My opponent destroyed a second exorcist and an immolator, but only a few girls. I was losing a lot of tanks, but I was getting close to his line, and most of my girls were okay, so I knew the game was not as one-sided as it appeared.
On my third turn, the one battle sister squad that had taken casualties started running toward an objective. The other squads moved forward. One celestian squad shook a hellhound, the other immobilized the demolisher, and my troops in rhinos moved into position to hold an objective. On my opponent's third turn, he dropped everything (I don't think he got anything on turn 2), but they didn't do much. He held two objectives and I held none. On my fourth turn, though, I was able to turn the tide. One of his drop units got massacred by an immolator, and the survivors ran away, knocking him off an objective. My first battle sister squad got onto an objective with my canoness nearby to support them, and two other squads swarmed another objective, with rhinos positioned in such a way that he couldn't easily get to them to knock them off. I took two melta shots at the demolisher and killed it; I also took two melta shots at the battle tank and one at the basilisk, but they all missed. Now I'm feeling worried, because I really didn't want to take those ordnance shots.
My opponent tried valiantly to knock me off the objective, but he couldn't quite do it. The battle tank and assorted additional fire took my squad on the objective down from 10 to 1, just the
VSS. The basilisk shot her, but I made my cover save, and she passed her morale test. Whew. End of game. I held two objectives to his one, so I won, but I didn't get any bonus points. Final score: 10-0.
End of day 1
Now I'm not feeling too good about my chances: I have 19 points, and there are a couple of players who have twice that. I am having a good time and I've learned a lot about my army, but I also have a headache from low blood sugar, so I go straight home. My wife serves me a nice dinner and I fall in sleep at 9:30. Apparently, a good night's rest is exactly what I needed...
Game 4
Mission: Seize Ground
Desployment: Spearhead
Opponent: Space Wolves
Wolf lord
Rune priest in terminator armor
4 Wolf guard terminators
Wolf priest
8 Blood claws with meltagun, power weapon, fist
8 Blood claws with meltagun, power weapon, fist
6 Grey hunters with 2x power weapon
Land Raider
Land Raider
Land Raider Crusader
I know that to have a hope of a high placement, I need a massacre. My opponent has only 22 troop models, and they're just T4 with a 3+ save, not hard to kill. If I can wipe out his troops I'll get 3 bonus points, I can't lose, and if I can hold one objective, that will be a major win for a total of 16 points. It also makes it likely that I can hold a table quarter for 18 points. So, that's the plan!
My opponent goes first, but I opt to set up on the board so that I will have a full five turns, at least, to take down his troops. He doesn't have enough long-range firepower to worry me. He surges forward and uses the machine spirit to shoot his lascannons, but they either miss or fail to glance. On my first turn, I too move up, and my exorcists try in vain to bring down a land raider.
On his second turn, my opponent moves his grey hunters to an objective, moves his land raiders up, and disembarks his terminators to shoot their assault cannons. He ends up immobilizing and knocking the
EML off one exorcist, but everything else is basically unharmed. On my turn, I shoot down the terminators with an exorcist and the canoness squad, and the canoness assault the rune priest. She will fight him for the rest of the game, trying desperately to kill him while using spirit of the martyr to keep herself alive. My celestians destroy the
LRC, which holds the wolf lord and one of the blood claw packs. My two remaining exorcists fire at the survivors and drop them to a three men. Meanwhile, a battle sister squad aims to take down the grey hunters, but they fail the roll for divine guidance and only kill two. Rats.
In the remaining turns, my opponent tries to run away with his wolf lord and blood claws to save them, but my exorcists gun them down. The wolf priest, blood claws and grey hunters slaughter the single battle sister squad that shot at the grey hunters, but I am able to kill most of them with a second battle sister squad and a couple of immolators. My canoness finally finishes off the rune priest and charges the survivors of the blood claws, the last of his troops, and kills them. She holds up the wolf priest until the end of the game. My opponent still has two land raiders, but they can't kill the two sister squads that are holding objectives in different quarters, and due to the heavy terrain, they can't reach them, so I win exactly as I had hoped. I also killed his highest point
HQ choice, so that's a score of 20-0. Now I have 39 points total and am in fourth place! I guess a lot of people had bad games this round, because I sky rocketed in the ranking.
Game 5
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Dawn of war
Extra rules: You nominate one unit in your opponent's army to be worth 2
kp instead of 1. Nightfight on turn 2 on a
D6 roll of 4+.
Opponent: Tyranids
Flyrant with 2x
tl devourer
Tyrant with warp blast, 2x tyrant guard
2 Dakkafexes
3 Lictors
5 Warriors with barbed strangler, 4x deathspitter
8 Genestealers with scuttlers
8 Genestealers with scuttlers
12 Spinegaunts, without number
12 Spinegaunts, without number
2 Zoanthropes
Gunfex
For the extra
kp, my opponent nominated one of my celestian units and I nominated one of his dakkafexes, knowing that they have to get fairly close to do any good.
My opponent starts with his walking tyrant and spinegaunt units up front, and everything but the stealers and lictors walks on his board edge on the first turn. He runs everything forward. I come on and shoot my exorcists at his tyrant unit, doing disappointingly little damage. One the second turn, he comes forward again and does not much. Two lictors deep strike and assault my vehicles, one of them going for the immolator holding the nominated celestians, but they fail to do any significant damage. A unit of stealers scuttles on, but I'm in the middle and the board is larger than normal, so they are far away. The long-range shooting is minimized by night fight. On my turn I kill the lictors and try to take down the tyrant, but again my exorcists are disappointing, I fail my test for divine guidance, and a unit of celestians miss their melta shots. The guard are gone and the tyrant is down to 1 wound, but I know I'm going to take serious casualties.
On his third turn, my opponent destroys an immolator with one zoanthrope and a rhino with the other. The spinegaunts charge the sisters that were in that rhino and lose the combat, but they are within synapse range, so they take another casualty and hold their ground. The tyrant charges the sister squad that shot at him after killing some of them with warp blast, but I use spirit of the martyr to minimize my casualties. I will hold the tyrant there until my canoness can reach him, but she's kind of far away. She gest there on my fifth turn and uses her litanies of faith to use hand of the emperor, which (with the blessed weapon) makes her S7, and she finishes off the tyrant.
The sisters fighting the gaunts get charged by the third lictor and die, but then I roast the remaining gaunts, so that's a wash. My exorcists shoot down the dakka fex worth 2
kp as well as a zoanthrope. At the end of the game my opponent has earned 4
kp (rhino, immolator, 2 sister squads), and I've earned 8 (tyrant, gaunts, 2 lictors, zoanthrope, stealers, dakkafex, bonus). Neither of us holds a table quarter, and we both still have troops left, but I managed a major win, so the final score is 15-0.
I have to say, I do not mind fighting tyranids in
kp missions. All my AV11 vehicles can be a liability in annihilation, but with only-glancing venom cannons and
AP- devourers, tyranids really have a hard time killing them.
End of day 2
What a difference a day makes! My score is up from 19 to 54, and I'm in second place. Blake, the
IG player in first place, takes best overall, so best general goes to me. Of course I'm happy about my victory, but more than that, I'm happy that I learned a lot about playing my army. I really enjoy playing sisters, so I'm glad that they are competitive. I think I have more fun with them than with my Eldar.
I think Minicon was a great success -- we had great boards, great looking armies and great players -- so if I'm still living in NC next year, I will definitely be going again.
