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A quick recap, I am 0-1-1 going into Game 3 having lost to Vulkan marines and tying against Orks. What would the stalwart Crimson Fists face next?


A quick reminder, I was playing this list:
Crimson Fists Ambush Force
Captain Vaqaero on Bike with Relic Blade

4 Bikes with MM Attack Bike, Power Fist, 2x Melta
4 Bikes with MM Attack Bike, Power Fist, 2x Melta
4 Bikes with MM Attack Bike, Power Fist, 2x Plasma
4 Bikes with MM Attack Bike, Power Fist, 2x Plasma

Land Speeder Typhoon
Land Speeder Typhoon
Land Speeder Typhoon

Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon



Game 3

Game 3 is 3 turns of night fight. I get to the table and find Josh with his nidzilla army. Hmmm, I haven't played against nidzilla in well over a year so this should be interesting! The mission is claim table quarters Josh is totally screwed by the mission as basically anything other than monstrous creatures and dedicated transports can claim a table quarter. I honestly felt kinda bad for him. I also was feeling much better during this game (thanks to what is likely and overdose of acetaminiphene) as is evidenced by the fact that I actually had a strategy for this game and remembered to take pictures.

Josh's army was:

Tyrant with 3 Tyrant guard
Tyrant with 3 Tyrant guard

Zoanthrope

3x9 without number gaunts

2 HS mean nasty Carnifexes
3 Elite mean Carnifexes



Since it is night fight for the first 3 turns I consider leaving everything in reserve but then remember that dreadnoughts come with searchlights for free now. Well, since he is showing up on turn 1 may was well give him some company, so I set up all three thunderfires in a building on the far right flank and keep everything else in reserve.

Josh starts with his big bugs on the table and everything else in reserve. As an aside, I think my main disappointment in this tourney mission wise (even though it didn't really affect me too much) was the weird restrictions on special missions. For instance, on this one, units couldn't outflank despite the fact that it is kind of costed into them, so Josh's without number gaunts couldn't come on and threaten my thunderfires immediately.

The big bugs advance and the dreadnought drops in in the back field. He fires at one of the elite carnies and does... nothing. The 12 Str 6 Thunderfire shots also achieve nothing. Ouch. Unsurprisingly, the carnie rips the dread apart although I think he suffers a wound in the process.



Turn 2 I get some of my army on and turn 3 I got the rest. Here is where Josh's lack of shooting killed him. I come on and decide to do the prison thing and just take out the biggest most frightening force that I can to try and shake his nerve. All 4 bike units fire on, and wipe out one of the tyrants with tyrant guard and are, fortunately for me, just outside of 12" of his nearest big bug.

He shifts and heads for me but at from this point on I basically fire my entire army at one big bug at a time and kill them all except for a hive tyrant (though the tyrant guard was stripped away) that implacably advances on my thunderfire cannons and then scale the building and rips them apart one at a time.



Thanks to turboboosting bikes and flat out speeders I am able to claim 2 quarters and contest the other two giving me a win. Like I said, though, the mission really screwed Josh on this one. I hope for the next tourney that Battlefoam holds, they bear in mind common builds when coming up with missions - or maybe don't make the wacky missions quite so wacky.

This ends the day 1 and I am sitting with a 1-1-1 record - not great but not too shabby either. This gets me to another one of the points of contention I had with the tourney - I personally feel that 2 draws should not be worth the same as a win and a loss. It just encourages people to play for draws. Maybe something like 17 for a win, 9 for a draw and 3 for a loss would work. It isn't crippling, but it encourages people to play for the win which is much more interesting (in my opinion).

Game 4
The dreaded "mystery mission". I was seriously worried that it would be something like "play your opponents army" kind of missions that were all the rage on the fantasy side a few years ago. Thankfully it was just no terrain. That was fine with me, and kind of cool in a nostalgic sort of way - I think almost all of us probably began our gaming careers by just lining up across the table from each other and rolling dice.

Game 4 I was up against Dakka's own Tekk_45. True to the Templar way he had brought along a Chaplain to ensure he walked the straight and narrow.

I liked his theme - they were all painted as Sword Brethren and the fluff is that it is the Marshal's personal household.

Tekk_45's list was:

EC with Accept Any Challenge
Marshal with Lightning Claws

10 Initiates power fist, melta(?) in a drop pod
10 Initiates power weapon, melta in LRC (with EC and Marshal)
5 Initiates with plasma cannon, flamer(?) in Rhino

Venerable dread in drop pod
Vindicator

There may have been more, that seems awfully small.



This is just a flat out VP game.

I manage to steal the initiative and think maybe I shake the rhino with the plasma cannon in it and punish the vindicator, shaking it as well.

Everything else moves forward full tilt. I think he is leaving my dread in his backfield until he reminds me that his drop pods don't start showing up until turn 2.

I try the thunderfire game of making his vehicles take dangerous terrain checks and immobilize the vindicator!

His dread comes in and shoots up one of the bike squads but another destroys it, before being destroyed by his land raider crusader.

The other drop pod finally shows up and tries to melta my dreadnought, in return it takes a lot of fire from a thunderfire cannon and all three typhoons as well as the dreadnought itself. I am ready to charge when they fail their leadership 10 check! They fall back, not quite off the table but outside of 6" so they get another shot at my dreadnought, which the destroy (and are then destroyed themselves thanks to lots of krak missiles).

This is another great game. His land raider filled with death annihilates one of my bike squads but the Captain holds for a turn before being wiped out by the Emperor's Champion.

We end up grinding this game out until all he has left is the Land Raider o' Death (tm) and I am down to 2 bikes, 1 thunderfire cannon and the three typhoons or something like that. The last shot of the game I try a hail Mary with one of my typhoons on the LRC to try and scrape up some VPs. I get a hit. A 6 to pen followed by another 6 to immobilize! It turns out not to have mattered, as we had an 81 point draw (the extra 133 points still keep it in draw range) but it was a great morale booster! I would absolutely play Tekk_45 again and look forward to a rematch.

Game 5
The last game of the weekend. Man, I have never been so ready for a tourney to be over. Not that my opponents were difficult - far from it. I was just really feeling the sick now. Papa Nurgle was expressing his dismay that I didn't take an all nurgle army as I had been considering.

Game 5 was against 40k Radio's Scott and was a 5 objective game. He was playing a pretty standard Tau force:

Commander with 2 drones, plasma, missile and whatever that reserve thing is called
Commander with 2 drones, plasma missle

3x10 Firewarriors in Devilfish
2 Railheads
3 Slow and purposeful broadsides



The thunderfires once again proved their worth by punishing the tau. They quickly moved up the fire priority list.

Basically all I remember about this one is an odd rules dispute (forgotten reserves roll = dead unit) and me failing to get through armor 13 on a death or glory with a multimelta which turned a potential draw into a loss.

I know that there isn't much to this last batrep but really, at this point, I was happy not to bleeding through any orifices.

Overall it was a good tourney and a lot of fun. It was great seeing old friends and making some new ones. I hope that they have another one next year, I will definitely attend.

Somnicide wrote:Tekk_45's list was:

EC with Accept Any Challenge
Marshal with Lightning Claws

10 Initiates power fist, melta in a drop pod
10 Initiates power weapon, melta in LRC (with EC and Marshal)
5 Initiates with plasma cannon, plasma gun in Rhino

Venerable dread /w melta and tank hunter in drop pod
Vindicator /w Machine Spirit
Vindicator /w Machine Spirit

I agree that it's a pretty small list, IMO we are in pretty bad need of some points reduction love. I pay 19 pts for an initiate with frag and krak.

I appreciate the props on my fluff, most people just ignore when i start babbling off about my army . I added in the one or two changes to my list. Nice batrep and it was a pleasure gaming with you too.

Will you be attending the team tournament going on at Imperial Outpost on halloween (i dont remember where you're from)? a buddy and i will be going and hopefully a few others from my group as well. Hopefully i will see you there.

For me, it is the background that makes 40k so appealing. I love it when someone else feels the same way. I am out in LA and won't be able to head back, though honestly, I would love to get out to Mesa for an RTT sometime in the Winter or Spring. I will see if I can get together any of the guys and we might make another weekend of it.

Awesome, we'd be happy to have you.