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Howdy all, played in Mike Clark's St. Valentines Day Massacre tourney in Media PA this weekend, and my Blood Ravens took first of 53 after 5 games!! Bit of a wall of text follows, but 5 mini bat reps get long~!
List was:
Pedro Kantor
Librarian with Null Zone and Avenger
10 Termies with 2 cyclones and 2 chainfists (1 cyclone had 1 chainfist, one storm bolter had one chainfist)
2 ven dreads with extra armor, multimelta, stormbolters
2 10 man tac squads with flamers, las cannons, and bolter/powerfist sarges.
2 Las/Plas Razorbacks
5 scouts, 4 snipers 1 missile launcher
2 independent attack bikes with multimeltas

Overall, my list worked well. I was fortunate that I had good matches, and since the tourney used comp, that impacted the meta game significantly.
Missions 1 was 5 objectives. Primary (worth 10 battle points) was to have more objectives. Secondary (7 battle points) was kill points. Tertiary (4 battle points) was to kill the enemy HQ. Bonus (1) was to get an HQ into the enemies deployment zone. Spearhead deployement, special rule was that half the terrain was on fire (dangerous) while the other half was smoking (+1 to cover saves)

I played against a shrike list run by Tony Spino who is running Mechanicon in november, with Shrike, 5 vanguard with 3 SS, 2PF, 1TH, 1 Relic, 1 PW, 3 tac in rhinos and 2 dev. He had a crazy mix of weapons, the devs had 2 hb and 2 pc, the other was 2 las 2 missile. He didnt combat squad...

Turn 1 he siezed the init, and killed my infiltrated scouts with shrike. Since I got to pick the sides, and we clustered the objectives pretty close, I played a conservative game of slowly advancing until the end where I jumped out and murdered things. Shrike got a direct hit with Kantors OB and a few cyclone missile launchers, wounding everyone in the vanguard, but he made all the invuln saves and forced me to double back a bit to wipe him out. Worst part is, I made a huge play mistake and forget to null zone! I dont get the bonus point because of this, since my termies with HQ were needed to kill all units from objectives, but in the end he is only left with 1 dev squad. 21-0.

Mission 2 was Football! 1 objective in the exact center of the board, infantry can pick up the foot ball and move with it, but they may only move the normal 6 inch move/assault... no running/jumping/teleporting/transports. Player with the football at the end of the game wins Primary. Secondary was to kill all infantry and jump infantry. Tertiary was to kill HQ. Bonus point was to spike the football in the enemies deployment zone (touchdown!). Battle was pitched battle set up.

I played Lou's necrons here, who took 2nd best painted. He ran the Deciever, lord with res orb and veil, 9 immortals, 3x10 warriors, 5 destroyers, 1 monolith, 4 disruption scarabs. He put the monolith and 1 warrior squad in reserve... I assume hoping to turn 2 drop and get warriors on the football. I let him... no monolith means no cover for deciever.

He failed to get the monolith on turns 2 AND 3! So I remember null zone, and on turn 1 and 2 procede to put the 5 wounds on the deciever. The ven dreads advance on his crons, along with some of the termies (i combat squad them) I use an attack bike he failed to kill with the destroyers (made all the saves) to hold the destroyers in cc on the top of 2 until the libby comes over and kills them with the force weapon turn 4. I also shoot down the lead cron warrior unit, so his Will be Back puts his risen models into the other unit. He decides that since things are going badly, and the ven dreads with s10 will ruin the monolith, the lord with immortals will teleport behind the dread for rear armor shots. His plan works somewhat, but my kantor countercharge kills the lord, who fails his WBB, and the immortals die in the next round.

When the monolith does show, the reserved warriors have to get out, meaning only s5 shots from the monolith. My charges on turn 4 knock out almost everything, and he phases. I didnt score a touchdown, because my opponent told me even though it was only turn 4 the game ends with no other movement, and I dont fight him over the 1 bonus point. (Later, the judge says that if an opponent is tabled, you get the full time to determine if you get bonus points--thus I should have gotten this bonus point! But it ended up not mattering, and i found out the next day when mike made the announcement)

Mission 3 was an oddball victory points game. You earn vps from the enemy, and depending on how many you kill is what your battle points are, ranging from 0-20. If you each kill 1701 or more, however, both players get a 20. I didnt like this mission since both players could max out. Deployment was pitched battle. Bonus points (2) for getting an HQ into the deployment zone. I dont combat squad the termies here, but do combat squad the tacs.

I play Damien here, with his very pretty Egyptian tzeench force, who goes on to take second place. He has 2 Warptime/gift of chaos Tzeentch princes, 3 100 point 2xccw chaos dreads, 2 defilers with reapers, 2 Oblits, 10 csm with autocannon in a rhino (chaos undivided, no champion) and 18 thousand sons with gift of chaos. I had issues with Damien, but I wont bore you with those here

I again use null zone, and by turn 2 I kill both of his daemon princes (without the sniper scouts, who get stuck in reserve due me moving a unit before realizing that they didnt infiltrate like I declared they would). He rolls some crazy results on his dreads, and due to his wave approach of 2 DP in front, followed by 3 dreads, followed by oblits and defilers, his phalanx formation slows him down abit.

On the other table side, he set up the 18 1ksons, and the rhino with auto was center. I get a dread into the 1ksons on turn 3, and wipe them with termies on 4, null zone helps. My other dread kills one of his 3, then goes on to tie up 2 others, immobing one and doing some damage to the other (a DCCW). A combat squad trades for the oblits, the bikes sell themselves absorbing shots, and the razors deal scattered wounds before being put down. A second combat squad takes out his 1 arm dread, and my termies+last dread kill a defiler and his 10 man squad.

The las cannon combat squads take pot shots all game, wounding stuff from the daemon princes to killing the rhino. The glory 10 man squad got pinned from the disembark (i have to tell Damien his models ld is 9 not 10), allowing me that charge with my termies that killed the csm, although I probably would have got them even if they didnt get pinned, just at higher cost. Final things left standing, he had 1 immobed dread and 1 immobed defiler, earning me over 1700 points for the 20. I had the libby in his deployment zone for the +2 bonus points. On my side, the scouts, 2 combat squads with las cannons, 1 wound libby, and 1 termie was left alive. He got 14 points off of me.

Next day, I am on table 1. People complained his original mission (mission 4) was a bad mission (it would have been real bad for me, but it wasnt a bad mission overall IMHO) New Mission is 5 objectives, pitched battle, objectives are all in the middle of the table spread 12 inches apart from one side to the other, each one is worth 4 points, 2 for contesting. 2 bonus points for getting any unit into the enemies deployment zone.

I play another chaos space marine force run by a Mike, this time nurgle themed. He had a nurgle warptime prince, a nurgle daemon weapon chaos lord biker, 3x2 oblits, 9 noise marines with 7 sonic, Bmaster and Dsiren, 8 plagues with 2 plasma, and 5 nurgle bikers with 2 melta +pfist. Overall, not a lot of shooting at range after the 6 oblits, but he got a good comp score. He goes first, turboing up with the bikes and advancing with the prince. He moved the noise marines instead of firing the s8 shot... I asked him later about this, he said he would rather the bolters on turn 1. His tzeench also advance a bit.

My turn, I again nullzone and wipe out his daemon prince in one go. I love null zone when people throw their big beasties right at you, expecting to either live or take up so much shooting that your turn ends in failure. I did not combat squad the termies, knowing that the bikes have the charge, and knowing (or expecting) that with 10 termies + Pedro, his crazy daemon weapon wont kill all of em and my counter attack powerfists will wipe him. So, his turn 2, he takes the bait, and kills EIGHT termies with that charge turn. I am flabbergasted.

I flub my attacks back to boot, with only the 2 cyclones who have to swing into the bike squad, and I dont wipe the bikes out. So wow, thats what happens some times when you tempt the dice gods. I piled Pedro into the nurgle lord. My turn I bring a ven dread from hunting his 3 troops/oblits to assault into the lord as well. He used the daemon weapon to swing into the 2 surviving termies, killing both cyclones with 2 wounds on each after it was all said and done. The ven dread + null zone pastes him, and his bike with fist is left unengaged since he wasnt in base with pedro at the start, but he stays locked so I cant get shot until the ven dred pasted him in his turn.

Shooting saw the 6 oblits trade with 1 bike, a dread and 2 razors. My dread from the bike combat gets the nurgle marines when plasma guns fail to stop him, pedro + a combat squad take the noise marines, and the other combat squad kills his last oblit. He is left with a wounded 1ksons squad, I moved up to claim every single objective. However, the 1ksons hold out, killing my last attack bike AND my scouts in combat, ending with me getting 4 objectives with the bonus for the dread in his deployment, and him with a single model on the table, the 1ksons sorc on the final objective. Final was 18 me 4 him.

Final Round: Final round is capture and control+pitched battle (no dawn of war at all?) Primary is getting your opponents objective, secondary is kill points, tertiary is your home objective, +1 if an hq is within 6 of the enemies objective. I play vs orks. He has Ghaz, Big Mek +KFF, 2 battle wagons with ram+1shoota, 3 nobs (for getting a bwagon and sitting on objectives), 3 kans with big shootas, 3 with grotzookas, 9 tank bustas with nob+truck, 2 tank hammers, 11 lootas, 2 seperate rokit buggies, 19 shoota orks with klaw, 18 slugga orks with klaw, 2x12 truck orks with klaw. He goes first, I fail to seize.

Playing for first place. His turn 1, everything shuffles forward ~6 inches. He tries to kill some of my combat squaded termies and las cannon tac squadMy turn 1 shooting, he cover saves my orbital bombard on ghaz's bwagon (drats, cursed KFF!) I do kill his big mek wagon with side shots I set up, other shooting is mostly saved. His turn 2, he calls the waaagh, and ghaz+18 friends hit my combat squad, my termie combat squad, a bike (i could have prevented the bike from getting hit, it was a small misplay, but with no fist into the bike it didnt matter) and ghaz himself is in with a ven dread. The shoota squad of 19, whose wagon got blown, rolls a difficult terrain 6 to get the pfist into the same ven dread that ghaz is fighting. A truck squad hits my other bike and the klaw is on the other ven dread.

Combat, I kept myself too spread out for pedro's buff to work for the ghaz combat, which was a misplay. BUT, it doesnt matter, because I roll 3 1's on 5 2+ saves, wiping the termie squad to 1, while the combat squad also all dies in 1 turn to only ~8 wounds. Ghaz+1 pk nob takes both arms off the ven dread and immobs him. My bike is unwounded. I wiff with the termie, and the PK nob kills him. So yeah, termies fail a huge number of saves, and without the pfist attacks back, even pedros buff wouldnt have helped. Realistically, if my saves there were average, he was WAY to spread out to inflict critical damage. I mean, with 4 termies (1 died to loota fire) and only 5 armor saves, if I only failed 1 save the 3 surviving termies would have lived and DRASTICLY affected the late game, since nothing else could have hurt them other than the kans that assault my straggling troops.

But oh well. His other truck squad immobs my ven dread and kills the bike. Bottom of 2, I get out of the razors with the 2 pfist combat squads. Pedro +5 termies advance, the libby with one of the pfist combat squads. My other las cannon combat squad moves off the objective to also get in. I make sure that one of my combat squad unites the 2 seperate combats, and pedro's termies lay waste to 1 truck squad, the tacticals waste the shootas and ghazzs squad and the other truck squad. He kills a bike, a termie (the psword), the armless ven dread, and 1-2 marines. I win combat by 13, and he is left with a wounded ghaz and 2 shootas... So from 50 ork models to 3 by bottom of 2, but meanwhile my army is chewed up/out of position. I consolidate the termies and 2 pfist squads into ghaz, and the las cannon squad stays with the 2 shootas, seperating the combats.

Turn 3, his shooting kills a razor, and he gets a kan into a combat squad. Combat sees ghaz kill a pfist combat squad before taking 8 pfist wounds and dying. The shootas i believe, oddly, as I only kill 1 with my 8 marine attacks. His grots, which he put in reserve, failed to come on again. My shooting, pedro + whats left of the termies move up and kill one of the 3 nobs on his objective... they fail morale and run off the objective. At this point, time had been called ~10 min earlier! Wow, so only 3 turns. Both my opponent and I were a bit upset at only playing 3 turns--not at the judge at ourselves.

We only had a real rules issue for less than 5 min (my opponent states that he plays that you can see through solid trees if you are in the area terrain with them, I stated that the game uses true line of sight, but I gave him all his shots anyway, after laying on guilt that I would never take such a shot myself), so mostly all that time was taken up in his turn 2 moving 50 orks 3 seperate times (regular move + disembark, 6 inch waaagh, difficult terrain assault move with careful multi assaults into 5 of my units.) for that multi assault, and my turn 2 where I killed them all. At the end of turn 3, my las cannon combat squad was on my objective, and I won on kill points due to time being called so early. Thus I got 11, and as his 3 nob troop fled off his objective he got 0. I only won kill points because, since we were using the adepticon/inat FAQ, any squads in reserve (his grots) at the end of the game count as dead. Without that, we were tied at 7 kill points each.

Since we both felt unsatisfied with the top table only getting 3 turns, we did extrapolate what would happen if the game went on. We determined that on turn 6, 3 turns later, he would have had his last truck with his last truckboyz on my objective, would have won on kill points, and unless my scouts moved up on turn 5-6, I would not have had his objective, as pedro + all the termies would get gunned down by tank bustas and lootas. Thus he could have gotten ~18-22 points to my 10 max, though I guess anything would have been possible if we had more time.

Overall, my list played pretty smooth. I won the whole thing by 1 point, beating the second place player Damien who I played in round 3. (I would have beat him by two if I would have told the judge about the bonus point versus necrons after I found out I could have gotten it) Since I only had 4 vehicles, and no heavy support, my list relied heavily on getting the right guys to the right place at the right time. I got most of my forces shredded this event, but with the objectives in sight was able to pull big wins in all but the last mission, when my dice were rolling a bit lower.

I also had some decent match ups (no mech guard, and I played 'softer' comp armies), and rolled average overall--though when I was already winning I seemed to start rolling hotter, like I hit+wounded with 8 of 9 pfist attacks in the last cron combat phase that phased him out, when I just needed 8 total dead crons to phase out and had 18 other pfist attacks still to swing. The libby was great, and performed on all but 2 games--the first where I forgot null zone completely after setting up and then causing instant death to shrikes whole squad just to single him out with an ID attack. The second was versus the orks, where combat was on turn 2 and other than ghaz there was no invuln saves. However, I was only able to try avenger 1 time the whole event (round 4, and I perils) and over all, the s6 power would have been MUCH better for my list--I originally had it as the s6 power, but took it out for some reason. I have issues with dreads (like the kans and defilers) and close combats versus things like MEQ/orks, and that power fixes both.

Other than that, its all about the fluidity to switch between shooting or assault. With good spacing, and average saves, the termies and ven dreads are great 'Water' style forces (as long as Lash of Submission isnt around anyway). Along with my dreads, and the 2 razor combat squads, and the 2 attack bikes, I have a very 'Water' list, with only 3 static elements--the 2 las cannon combat squads and the infiltrating scouts. I thank Silent Requiem for that, his tactica, though dated for 4th ed, really helped my planning.

Good report and congrats. I think you very much did benefit from not playing against mech guard, but such is the game of tournament warhammer!


What did you think of the venerable dreads versus using Ironclads? Do you think the reroll helped more than the extra armor. Armor 13 is a pain to crack in combat, though you'd have to lose the full sized multi meltas.

Well the full sized meltas were fantastic. The ap1, the WS/BS5 actually, and the reroll combined are great. Sure the ironclad is a bit cheaper, but versus really hard things av 13 vs 12 wont help.

Example. Versus Ghazzy, his s10 will get through the av13, and with no reroll you are quickly defenseless. Against other walkers, however, the +1 to damage means that the ironclad is more likely to kill its target, and die, at the same init--where my ven dreads would instead lock up his units for multiple turns, preventing them from assaulting my other stuff, and letting me maneuver more. Since I need maneuver more than killing in this list, the ven dread is better for me.

Also, this is my 2 starter set 1500 point army, that got expanded to 1850. As such, I am only using the dreads from the starter set.

Mike Mullesher (sp?) ran 6 ironclads for this event, and did pretty average he was saying. Some games they were great, other games a monstrous creature teared them up in 1 round.

Well done!

Great job Devian!

G

Great job Brad! Well played indeed! Congrats on the win man!

I can't believe I just read 5 reps. The writing is concise and yet detailed enough to give a good idea of how the game went. Very well written report and aparently well played tournament. Congrats!

What were your comp and painting scores?

Congrats to the win =)

Nice job on the win! Would have been intersting to see how this army did against a Mech IG, eldar, or nid list. But you can't choose who you play!

Congrats on the win yesterday your blood ravens looked great I really liked your version of attack bikes

GRATS. Two things.


People say you can only win with Vulcan or mech marines, you proved them wrong this time.

People say Daemon princes are so much better than Chaos lords, nullzone says not this time.

Good job! I personally love the Tac Termies the way you have them built (the right way ) and I'm glad to see that people are doing well with them.

Well done on the win. Its a shame for your last Ork opponent he edged me out to play you in the final game. I'd have liked a crack against your army

And of course you wouldn't have been able to spawn all my hq models on command...

Congrats on the win!

Well fought and well deserved!

Nice to see you prove the meta isn't all that. I think you would have done very well versus mech IG & mech eldar as you have a very well designed list & excellent tactics.

G

Cheesesteak, what army did you bring?

Dash, my comp and painting were 14 and 11. I was very happy to get an 11 in painting; those Blood Ravens were the first army where I tried the glowing lighting effect for the eyes, plus a few other painting/modeling 'firsts' for me, like greenstuff uneven mud surfaces for the basing and freehand chapter symbols.
As for the Comp, well I hoped to get an above average comp with mostly nilla marines, since ven dreads are not usually well regarded, and everyone seems to favor THSS+Raiders for competitive Marines. 1500 points of the army is built from 2 starter sets+bits, which also limits that armies options.

As for the Meta, well I dont think I proved anything new actually. The tourney, due to comp scoring, really REALLY skewed the meta. For example, on round 4 table 1, I played a CSM marine list that, by all rights, was mostly terrible. BUT, in a comp tourney, it was actually pretty great thanks to a great comp score boosting his overall and 2 big antiMEQ units.
My list also, while seeming soft, has a few counters for anything, just not awesome autowin counters. Plus, Kantor is a pretty good overall character, though I would have liked a few more elite choices to get some scoring sternguard.

Alex, I would have loved some Cake, but after 4 games I was a bit afraid the Cake would have run out by then and I would only be left with Death. I would like to get some games versus your chaos or IG, when is your next appearance in the area?

Alex, I would have loved some Cake, but after 4 games I was a bit afraid the Cake would have run out by then and I would only be left with Death. I would like to get some games versus your chaos or IG, when is your next appearance in the area?

Actually. there was no death left, just cake.

When are the next events down there? I'm planning on going to Mechanicon, and if there are any events between now and then I'll try and get to them. I believe there is a GT up in HArtford in October if you want to make the trip north. I'm going to be at Adepticon at the end of the month as well if you're going.

I played the, other salamanders list there (the ones that were a darker green), also as far as the next tournament goes on march 20 i believe we are having gladiator using adepitcon rules and missions.

The Everliving wrote:

Alex, I would have loved some Cake, but after 4 games I was a bit afraid the Cake would have run out by then and I would only be left with Death. I would like to get some games versus your chaos or IG, when is your next appearance in the area?

Actually. there was no death left, just cake.

When are the next events down there? I'm planning on going to Mechanicon, and if there are any events between now and then I'll try and get to them. I believe there is a GT up in HArtford in October if you want to make the trip north. I'm going to be at Adepticon at the end of the month as well if you're going.

I got neither cake nor death. *sniff*

Good job!

I like the list, most people don't use venerables but it sounds like they really saved you vs Ghaz.

Congratulations on your win! I also like your list, and it's good to see someone realizing the value of ordinary Terminators and Venerable Dreadnoughts. I'm also glad to see successful demonstration of why Daemon Princes are just big targets (nothing quite like public validation and all)...

You may not know, so maybe Mike would have to answer this question. You scored a 14 Comp and stated that you only faced "softer comp" armies. Question, was the comp banding for opponents in effect? IE were softer armies only matched against softer armies, hard vs hard?

According to the tournament organizer in another thread, something that they found was that composition tended to be "banded" so that in many cases the first round match-ups were match-ups of armies from the same Codex.

The way comp was ran, for games 1 and 2, you played opponents with similar comp scores, as well as battle points for game 2. After that, pairings were only based on battle points. I just had good match ups lol. Alex, who had a comp of 2, was inches away from playing me round 5 since he had 71 battle points, but an Ork player with Ghaz, KFF, and 2 BW, had 74 battle points, thus I dodged perhaps the strongest army there. (since the Nid lists really should have been 6-8ish, and thus weren't better than the dual lash list)

Comp banding was huge for game 1 and to a lesser extent game 2 in the low comp area, because armies with similar comp scores tended to be the same army. Thus, a low comp IG army was much more likely to play another low comp IG army; low comp nids played low comp nids, ect ect.

I ended up playing another marine army round 1, but marines each play so differently thanks to the different chapter tactics that I dont really consider marines vs marines to be banded results.

I think I lucked out with a score of 10. I played a 4 russ avg guard army and a 8 comp bug list. After that, I hit the top tables, vs a high comp chaos army, and Nicks nids.

Blood Ravens with Pedro Kantor.

Fluffy is dying on the inside.

eNvY wrote:Blood Ravens with Pedro Kantor.

Fluffy is dying on the inside.

I think you need to read the box at the bottom right-hand corner of page 127.

As for how 'fluffy' it is for Pedro in my Blood Ravens, well this marine force of mine was started only because of Dawn of War 2. In it, the force commander with all the trimmings is most similar to Pedro Kantor rules wise, with the inspiring banner, orbital bombard, special bolter, ect.

My other, actual space marine force is the Black Dragons, who arnt even assembled from their boxes--and I have had them much longer than the Blood Ravens. I just got the urge to paint the 'Ravens, liked the color scheme, liked the AOBR sets, and since they represent my best painting I took them to the GT.

Congrats on the win. Finally got around to reading your report.

I can post up the pictures I took of your army, your last game and you holding the trophy if you want or I can just email them to you.

As far as the fluffy bunnies. The special characters from the marine codex are more designed as a generic hero that you can give your own name to and have as your own chapter leader. So intead of Pedro Kantor you have Raven Lou Master of the Ravens or whatever.