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Just played a 1500 tournament at Game Kastle. There were 16 people in attendance and 4 games, with winners from each round facing the other winners and so on, until there is only 1 perfect winner with a 4-0 record. The tournament used the Adepticon primer missions.

I had a very tough time. None of my matches were easy and almost all of them went the full 2 hours, but it was an absolute blast to play.

This is more of a preview. The battle reports will come a little later.


My list:



Hive Fleet Pandora 1500
Swarmlord
1x Tyrant Guard - Lash Whips - 65

2x Hive Guards - 100
2x Hive Guards - 100
2x Hive Guards - 100

Tervigon - Adrenal Glands, Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Onslaught, Toxin Sacs - 210
11x Termagants - 55
11x Termagants - 55

3x Biovores - 135
3x Biovores - 135
Tyrannofex - Cluster Spines, Desiccator Larvae, Rupture Cannon - 265

Total - 1500


--------------------------------------------


Round 1 I played against the new Dark Angels. This is probably their most competitive list currently. He had:

Belial
Sammael
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher, Apothecary
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher
3x Ravenwing bikes - 2x meltas, 1x Attack bike w/Multi-melta

Everything besides the HQ's were scoring units, with 1 unit of assault terminators with FNP thanks to the Apothecary.


--------------------------------------------


Game 2 was my worst nightmare. This is possibly the only army that I dreaded in the entire tournament - mechguards. My opponent was ChristianA, a seasoned tournament player. He had:

Company Command Squad - 2x plasmas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x plasmas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x meltas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x meltas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x meltas, Chimera
Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta
Manticore
Manticore


--------------------------------------------


In round 3, I was pitted against the new Dark Eldar. He used the Webway Portal and had a mix of both infantry and mech.

Succubus - Agoniser
Haemonculus - Power weapon
Haemonculus - Webway portal

8x Wyches - Plasma grenade launcher, Haywire grenades, Agoniser, Raider w/Aethersails
8x Wyches - Plasma grenade launcher, Haywire grenades, Power weapon
3x Wracks
3x Wracks

Beast pack - 3 Beastmasters, 3 Razorwings, 5 Khymaerae
6x Reavers - 2x Heat lances, Power weapon
6x Reavers - 2x Heat lances, Venom blade

Ravager - Flickerfields
Ravager - Flickerfields
Razorwing - Night shields


--------------------------------------------


In my last game - game 4 - I faced against another Tyranid list. Now my list was a bad matchup for him. However, Reecius is a very, very good tournament player who consistently places high. He actually held a 1500 tournament the day before (with 9 players) and using the exact same list, he got 1st place and even managed to beat out a mechguard list similar to my game 2 opponent. Even though I have the superior list, I can't under-estimate him.

Prime - Bonesword + Lash Whips, Death Spitter
Zoeanthrope
3x Hive Guards
7x Ymgarls
16x Genestealers
16x Genestealers
24x Termagants
Trygon Prime - Adrenal Glands
Trygon - Adrenal Glands


-------------------------------------------


Reports to come.....





Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also like to add that while I've played a lot of competitive games, as far as tournament play is concerned, I am still a newbie. And in this tournament, I made a lot of stupid mistakes. I forgot to cast FNP with my tervigon a few times, and even when I did cast it, I forgot that I had it on a few more times (forgot to take my FNP saves!). I also forgot to use my Swarmlord's special power a number of times, forgetting to cast prefered enemy or furious charge a few times when I could've used them. Finally, I didn't check carefully enough regarding which model belonged to which unit when I shot at it, screwing me out of assaulting in 1 game. I can't believe I am such a noob!!!

But the gravest 2 mistakes was this - RTFM! That's right....read the frickin' missions! I misread 2 missions....and against the 2 best players where I definitely couldn't afford to make even minor mistakes against.

The first major mistake was in game 2 against Christian's mechguards. My mistake was that I thought any unit could claim a table quarter. However, it had to be any scoring unit.

The 2nd mistake was in game 4 against Reece's tyranids. I thought you had to claim all 3 of the opponent's objectives in order to claim one of the victory conditions but actually, you only needed to claim 2.

Sounds like a good tournament. I wanted to stop by and observe, but I ended up sleeping all day.

I'm also very surpised how many Dakkaites are in my area. Especially Reecius.

what was your list?

Oops! Forgot my list. Just added it above.

Should I vote?

I know how this story unfolds!

You did great, Jy2, especially considering you have so few tournaments under your belt. I bet the mistakes you did make, won't happen again.

Thanks again for the awesome tournament, Janthkin, that was good fun.

First battle should be out later today.


@Janthkin:

Lol. If you want. Thanks for hosting the event. I had a great time and all the players were great. Every game was a challenge. You can't ask for anything more than that.

@Reecius:

The match that actually had me sweating the most was against you! What I thought should have been a cakewalk for me turned out to be a nailbiter of a game.

Thanks for the awesome game.

Yeah, your list was definitely better than mine in a head to head contest, but I thought I was going to sneak one by you with my tricky tactics!

Excellent game, whenever I curse like a sailor after the dice rolls, you know I am 100% engaged in the game! It was a good one.

Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for the battle report "summaries" but as I didn't take notes (or rather, didn't have time to take notes), I can only rely on what few pictures I took during and my fading memories to tell the story. Also, I forgot to take a lot of pictures as I was too engrossed in some of the battles, so these reports won't be as detailed as some of my other ones. Lastly, for all you dakkalites who went to the tournament, if I get any of the details of my battles wrong, please feel free to let me know and I will correct it.

Using the Adepticon Primer missions, each scenario had 3 win conditions (or mission objectives). Basically if you achieve more mission objectives than your opponent, you win. In the case of a tie, the winner is then the player with 185+ Victory Points more than his opponent.


---------------------------------------------------


MISSION 1
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Initiative: Tyranids
Mission Objectives:

1. Annihilation.

2. 3 Objectives. Whoever controls more objectives wins this mission objecitve.

3. Most Costly Unit. You achieve this objective by destroying the opponent's most expensive unit.


---------------------------------------------------


Opponent: Lance's new Dark Angels



Belial
Sammael
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher, Apothecary
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher
5x TH/SS terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher
3x Ravenwing bikes - 2x meltas, 1x Attack bike w/Multi-melta


---------------------------------------------------



I deploy first.


Lance, weary of my biovores, conga-lines his terminators, making sure they are all 2" apart. Sammael stays in reserves.


My army advances. My plan was to destroy his mobility by destroying his bikes and land speeder (Sammael). I concentrated all my biovores and shooting on his bike squad and manage to kill off his 2 melta-gunners.


This picture is after the bikers made their scout moves and then moved again on their turn 1. His terminators stay back and just shoot. His shooting does minimal damage, killing a few gaunts and I believe putting 1W on my hive guards.

On my turn 2, I shoot down his biker sergeant and maybe a couple of terminators.


Sammael comes in on his turn 2 and hides behind the tower and out of LOS of my tyrannofex.


He would shoot down my lone hive guard with MM attack bike. He also kills some gaunts as well as put 1W on my Swarmlord with a frag blast.



My Turn 3. I did a little more shuffling and shooting, failing to kills his attack bike. I did shoot down a couple more terminators. I had no LOS to Sammael.


His Turn 3. He begins to mobilize his terminators.


He once again did little damage, killing some gaunts and putting 1-2 wounds on my hive guards. His MM attack bike assaults my gants. His strategy was to wipe out my scoring units for easy Kill Points as well as to prevent me from taking objectives. My gants hold and they stay locked in combat.


My Turn 4. My tyrannofex blows away Sammael's AV14 land speeder. Swarmlord goes over to wipe out his attack bike. My tervigon spawns some termagants but I roll doubles. The gants then go to claim my objective in the tower. I also surround the middle objective (in the center of the map) to try to screen it off.

In his turn 4, he continued to wither down my termagants as well as put a couple of wounds on my hive guards.

In my turn 5, I didn't do too much besides to kill a few more terminators.


His Turn 5. His haminators start lumbering towards the central objective. I felt he should have ran, but he opted to shoot his cyclone missiles instead, killing off a unit of hive guards but little else.

We roll to see if the game ends and it does.


He's got his objective.


I've got my own objective. I've also got the middle objective as well, so I take mission objective #1.

We tie in Kill Points as I've killed Sammael and his bike squad. He's only killed 2 of my hive guard units. All my termagants were damaged but still alive (though 1 only had 1 gant left).

We both fail to kill each other's most costly unit so that is a draw.


Victory to Tyranids!


---------------------------------------------------


Post-game Assessment: He played way too cautious and tentative, which worked to my advantage. I was really concerned about his terminators as I had no low-AP weaponry and my army isn't really assault-oriented, but when I saw how he deployed (far away from me and spread out), I knew I could take advantage of that and played aggressively as if I was going to assault him. Then when I reached the middle of the board where the objective was, I just stalled and kept shooting. After killing his mobility, it was just a matter of preventing him from taking the middle objective. Of course, I was happy when the game ended on turn 5. If he had just played a little more aggressively, who knows how this battle would have turned out.

I am really surprised he didnt Deathwing assault his army,those terminators are hard as nails, especially with an apothecary,and he really could have put on a ton of early pressure. I think mixingin a few LC is also a good idea, but that is a story for another time. Nice win playing for the objectives.

Thanks. I think he decided not to Deathwing Assault his army for several reasons:

1) 6 biovore large blasts will devastate any units that come in that way.

2) A collaborate assault on my part against his army coming in piecemeal. Even with assault terminators, it isn't wise to pit a part of his army against my entire army.

3) Starting them on the board meant 8 missile launcher shots per turn.

How are biovores working out for you? I've never actually seen them used before.

Good btrp jy2. Your opponent was playing very cautious against your Nids.

Wow, even at 1500pts your Nid list is scary!

I look forward to reading more.

jy2 wrote:Thanks. I think he decided not to Deathwing Assault his army for several reasons:

1) 6 biovore large blasts will devastate any units that come in that way.

2) A collaborate assault on my part against his army coming in piecemeal. Even with assault terminators, it isn't wise to pit a part of his army against my entire army.

3) Starting them on the board meant 8 missile launcher shots per turn.

Not really. if by some magical chance you hit with all shots from both squads and deal 30 hits. Then 15 wound. and you kill 2.5 terminators. and if that belials squad that gets reduced to less than one terminator.

And with his bike squad he could of dropped them right in front of you


Automatically Appended Next Post:
good report!

@Gavo:

I love my biovores. They're awesome. They've survived each and every game. As a matter of fact, I believe I only lost 3-4 biovores the entire tournament. Quite a contrast to the triple-trygons I used to run in my competitive nid list.

They were probably least productive in Mission 1. That's because my opponent spread his terminators the maximum coherency away, and because, well, they're terminators. My biovores probably killed 2-3 terminators and the 2 melta bikers. But one thing I've gotta say is that they probably greatly influenced how he deployed and played, at least psychologically. If my cheap unit can mess with how my opponent plays, then that's a win in my books.

From there, they only got better.


@SabrX:

Thanks. My nid list is alright. Then again, you've already played against a variation of it before. I've transitioned from an assault-based nid list with 2-3 trygons to a more shooty-based nid list with tyrannofex and biovores, though for the tournament, I've added the Swarmlord as a counter-assault deterrent against the more assaulty armies (here's looking at you, thunderwolves, Mephiston, wyches and nobs). So far, I think they're working pretty well together.

I believe it is the reputation of the nids (or rather, the Swarmlord) which kept him at bay. Or maybe my potential volume of fire? Or maybe it was just his strategy of trying to wither me down with missile fire before closing in for the kill. At any rate, he under-estimated nid resiliency to missile fire.

@ChocolateGork:

The mathhammer part may well be, but I think his decision was more psychological. Better to have his whole army there at the start and firing than parts of it coming down against my entire army.

No, his bikers could not have done that, not with just 1 multi-melta and several boltgun shots from 24" away and not with him eating pie plates, hive guard impaler cannons and the t-fex rupture cannon in return. He also probably didn't see them as a really big threat compared to some of my other units as they tried to take out my hive guards (easy KP's and because they were closer maybe).

Then again, it's all a matter of "what if" he had played this way or played that way.

Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for the battle report "summaries" but as I didn't take notes (or rather, didn't have time to take notes), I can only rely on what few pictures I took during and my fading memories to tell the story. Also, I forgot to take a lot of pictures as I was too engrossed in some of the battles, so these reports won't be as detailed as some of my other ones. Lastly, for all you dakkalites who went to the tournament, if I get any of the details of my battles wrong, please feel free to let me know and I will correct it.

Using the Adepticon Primer missions, each scenario had 3 win conditions (or mission objectives). Basically if you achieve more mission objectives than your opponent, you win. In the case of a tie, the winner is then the player with 185+ Victory Points more than his opponent.


---------------------------------------------------


After the first match, we had lunch. During lunch, I was telling some of the guys how scary Christian's Imperial Guard army was and how I wouldn't want to face him. Guessed Janthkin heard me, so when we come back from lunch, guess who I was facing?

No, just kidding, the TO didn't overhear me. It was just a coincidence I had to face him as he also won his first match (I may be wrong, but I think he tabled hist 1st opponent). Anyways, I felt that this would be my greatest challenge....and I looked forward to it.


MISSION 2
Deployment: Spearhead
Initiative: Imperial Guards
Mission Objectives:

1. Modified Kill Points. Only non-troop enemy units were worth KP's.

2. Table Quarters. You control a table quarter by having a scoring unit there and if there are no enemy units present.

3. Led by Example. You achieve this by having your HQ within 3" of the center of the table and no enemy HQ units present.

I make a big mistake in this game. I didn't read the mission objectives carefully enough and thought that you only needed any unit in a table quarter to claim it. If I had known that, I would've played differently and left a unit of troop in each quarter. I also would've protected my termagants better.


---------------------------------------------------


Opponent: Christian's Imperial Guards

Christian, feel free to correct me if your list is off.


Company Command Squad - 2x plasmas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x plasmas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x meltas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x meltas, Chimera
Veteran Squad - 3x meltas, Chimera
Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta
Manticore
Manticore

---------------------------------------------------




IG deployment.


My deployment.


His Turn 1. Christan scouts his vendettas and the game begins. Both manticores only manage to fire 1 shot each and they scatter, causing minimal damage. The vendettas only manages to kill off 1 hive guard thanks to bad rolling and cover.

My Turn 1. I advance my army. My shooting is just as lackluster as I manage only to shake 1 vendetta and blow off 1 weapon off another.


His Turn 2. 2 Melta-vets go after my left flank.


His shaken vendetta moves flat-out for the cover. He disembarks his plasma-vets right in front of my hive guards and gets ready to rapid-fire them. Manticores only score 1-2 shots each and once again, they scatter, doing minimal damage. One of his plasma-vets dies to Get's Hot! Vendettas and veterans then focus-fire and kill off 1 squad of hive guards.


My Turn 2. Tervigon comes in and FNP's himself. At first, I made the mistake of thinking that the Swarmlord let's 1 troop choice outflank (got it confused with Hive Commander) but Janthkin corrected me. Thanks, Janth!

My shooters open up on the vendettas and I am only able to shake and weapon destroy a lascannon. My biovores fire at his plasma-vets (I placed the blast marker on the center of his chimera) and 2 direct hits later, I wipe them out. I believe I also score a weapon destroyed on his chimera. My other biovores, having no infantry to kill, fire upon his Command's chimera. I actually managed to immobilise and stun it! Finally my tervigon proceeds to assault his vendetta, managing to shake the already-shaken vehicle.


His Turn 3. Both vendettas move 6"+ away from my tervigon (the shaken one moves flat-out). This time, his manticores produce 3 shots each. 1 scatters and 1 hits. My gaunts go to ground but he still kills a bunch as well as 1 hive guard. His melta-vets try to fire at my biovores but are slightly out of range and his vendettas whiff.


My Turn 3. Tervigon produces 7 gaunts. My shooting blows up 1 of his vendettas and my biovores, once again, glances his CCS chimera, destroying its multi-laser.


Here, my gants shake his melta-vet chimera.


His Turn 4. Vendettas go after the Swarmlord. Meltavets disembark from the shaken chimera to help out on Swarmy.


After all is said and done - 2 meltavets and 2 vendettas - he's only inflicted 2W's on Swarmy and 1W on the tyrant guard. I believe his manticores flub again and only manage to put 1W on my hive guard.


My Turn 4. Tervigon assaults his chimera and reduces it to a useless but still living piece of metal. I also shake one of his vendettas.


Biovore blasts reduce the disembarked melta-vets to just 1 guy left, pinning him, as well as stun the chimera. Swarmy assaults the other chimera and wrecks it 3 times over (was hoping for an explosion).


His Turn 5. Sorry, but this is the last photo for this battle. He flat-outs his shaken vendetta. He wipes out my small squads of gants near his table quarter. He also wipes out both hive guards with all his shooting (each only had 1 wound left). His disembarked melta-vets go after my termagants, shooting and assaulting. They survive and remain locked in assault, but there are just a few gants left. I forget that I get to hit his damaged chimera with my tervigon for free as it was still in base contact with it.

My Turn 5. My tervigon moves and runs to contest his table quarter. Swarmy goes to claim the middle as well as contest a table quarter. I try to leech essence his long veteran but fail to do any damage. Tyrannofex shoots down the far vendetta (the one that didn't move flat-out). My termagants race back to try to claim my table quarter (I didn't realise my mistake until just this turn). In assault his veterans wipe out my gants and they spread out with their consolidation.

We roll to see if the game continues and it does.

His Turn 6. His melta-vets (in his deployment zone) and his CCS go after my tervigon to try to kill it. He disembarks his CCS and spreads them out, but only 1 plasma can rapid-fire. Still he puts 3W on it.

My Turn 6. Should I drop my biovore pie plates on his veteran squad or his CCS? I decide to go after his CCS but due to scatter and him making his Invuln save for his commander, I don't believe I did any damage. Swarmy tries to Leech Essence his lone veteran but comes up short once again and my t-fex fails to blow away his last vendetta.

After this turn, time is called.

I'm contesting his veterans (top-left) with my Swarmlord and his other veterans (top-right) with my tervigon. He is contesting my last unit of termagants (bottom-right) with his vendetta and tin-can chimera, as my termagants fail to make it back to my table quarter (bottom-left). So for mission objective #2, we tie.

I've only killed 2 vendettas and he's killed my 3 hive guards. He's wins on modified kill points (mission objective #1).

Lastly, I have my Swarmlord claiming the middle with his HQ far away in his deployment zone. I take mission objective #3.

So we are tied with 1 objective each. We go down to victory points. I am ahead but only by about 100+ VP's (I needed 185VP's to take the tie-breaker).


Draw!!!


Interestingly enough, 5 other people got draws this turn, including my next turn opponent.


---------------------------------------------------


Post-game Assessment: That was an exciting game. I felt so lucky that his manticores weren't doing much with minimal number of shots and bad scatter. I, on the other hand, was making my cover saves. On the flipside, I should have been able to shoot down all his vendettas but was rolling low on the vehicle damage tables. There is just too many "what if's" in this scenario, with the biggest one being "what if I had paid attention to the mission objectives?" so I'll take the draw. At least the worst is over....I hope.

Conclude, already! This is one of the games I was curious about how the results came to pass.

Janthkin wrote:Conclude, already! This is one of the games I was curious about how the results came to pass.

Done! Sorry, but had to step out momentarily.

poorly played by the guards player.....why would he adnvance into assaulting ranges. He should have sat in his side. shot your AT first, then shot your troops. and then made turn 4-5 moves with vendettas to contest or control quarters.

Seems he put himself into assaults he didnt need to be in

Mafty wrote:poorly played by the guards player.....why would he adnvance into assaulting ranges. He should have sat in his side. shot your AT first, then shot your troops. and then made turn 4-5 moves with vendettas to contest or control quarters.

Seems he put himself into assaults he didnt need to be in

I thought he played alright. Here's why:

1) Troops are not worth kill points. He could afford to be aggressive and sacrifice a couple.

2) Troop chimeras can neither score nor are worth kill points. He definitely should play them aggressively and try to contest all the table quarters. He would also use them as "bait".

3) He was trying to bait me into assaulting them instead of trying to contest his table quarters. If my Swarmlord had gone to assault his units, I wouldn't have been able to claim the center objective. If my Swarmlord assaulted his chimera, I would've been left out in the open without cover for his "retaliation". If my tervigon did likewise, I might not have possibly reached his table quarter to contest. If my tyrannofex assaulted his tin cans, then he wouldn't have been able to shoot at his vendettas. He was a shrewd player. I was just experienced enough not to fall for it.

4) Terrain would've blocked most of his LOS, whereas my hive guards and biovores didn't need LOS to hurt him. Here, terrain gave me the advantage but then again, my army was designed to be able to take advantage of LOS-blocking terrain. My only fear was his manticores, who didn't need LOS. I was lucky when they failed to do much damage.

5) He did concentrate on my AT, firing at the hive guards almost every turn with his manticores and vendettas. I just made a lot of saves and his manticores scattered.

jy2 wrote: Troop chimeras can neither score nor are worth kill points.

I'm sorry, WHAT is your tournament organizer smoking?

I've got to say, I'm loving the terrain, though. That's pretty top-notch work.

Ailaros wrote:

jy2 wrote: Troop chimeras can neither score nor are worth kill points.

I'm sorry, WHAT is your tournament organizer smoking?

I've got to say, I'm loving the terrain, though. That's pretty top-notch work.

Now, now - they aren't my missions, they're the Adepticon Primer missions. Drive up to Chicago and ask Matthias, if you're really curious.

Mission 2 is designed to force you to choose - do I kill the Scoring units, who can claim table quarters, or do I go after non-Troops choices, which are worth Kill Points?

I'm sorry, it's just that seeing a mission type where there is NO DRAWBACK WHATSOEVER to mech or MSU spam seems silly to me.

Good thing that people are getting practice beforehand, then, I suppose.

Tangently aside, where did you get the various swords for the swarmlord?

Ailaros wrote:I'm sorry, it's just that seeing a mission type where there is NO DRAWBACK WHATSOEVER to mech or MSU spam seems silly to me.

Good thing that people are getting practice beforehand, then, I suppose.

Apply context, though - there are 4 missions in the Primer packet, and 2 of the others include "standard" KPs.

When we playtested the missions a few months ago the KP mission where only nontroop kp's counted got the biggest negative feedback. I suppose it was because an all Ork foot army won the tourney with that one.

Most people who don't like kill points don't remember the bad old days of 4th edition and before. No reason to take more than the min 2 units of 5 Tacticals and load all your points into big un killible things. All you had to do was kill one unit and hide in your LR or Holo field boats and win. Heck I Won at least 2 turnies buy loading my points into 2 Unkillible Carnies and running amok with the other 4. Min maxing was worse as well. It's be that troop transports don't cost kill points. Like IG needed the boost. Funny how they didn't say spawned units don't cost kill points. How about trooo MCs They are less usefull that troop transports. And they wonder why Turnies are 80% Mech vet IG and 90% SW. Yes that's 170%

DarthDiggler wrote:When we playtested the missions a few months ago the KP mission where only nontroop kp's counted got the biggest negative feedback. I suppose it was because an all Ork foot army won the tourney with that one.

Yeah, I had a Dark Angels player: 4 units of (Troops) Deathwing Termies, 1 (Troop) Bike squad, Sammael in a speeder, and Belial. 2 potential KPs. He had an easy time with this mission.

@Ailaros:

Yeah, they have some pretty nice terrain there at Game Kastle. If anything, some of the tables tended to be a little terrain-heavy, but that's good. Keeps IG and Space Wolves honest.

As for the missions, I'm sure Janthkin can provide feedback to the organizers for Adepticon, though I don't know if it would change anything. One thing about these missions though is that they are designed to minimize any draws and yet we had a lot of ties. I think that can be worked on easily enough (i.e. by maybe lowering the VP difference for the tiebreaker or by eliminating the tiebreaker difference completely).


@carmachu:

Actually, I bought my Swarmy off of Ebay, but I can tell you easily enough where they got the arms. They're actually 4 of the hive tyrant's bonesword right arms. The left arms are just the right arms in reverse. All arms are magnetized here.


@sexiest_hero:

I like the 5th edition emphasis on troops, but I still see a lot of people in tournament play use min-sized troops and large scary deathstars - wolfstar, assault-terminator-spam, nob bikers, dual-jetseer councils, fatecrusher, etc. But I think tournaments tend to punish these type of lists with emphasis on objectives, not that these type of lists care much. They almost always try to go for the table. Anyways these lists are much rarer nowadays, as the competitive gamers have mostly gone MSU in tournament play.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Janthkin wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:When we playtested the missions a few months ago the KP mission where only nontroop kp's counted got the biggest negative feedback. I suppose it was because an all Ork foot army won the tourney with that one.

Yeah, I had a Dark Angels player: 4 units of (Troops) Deathwing Termies, 1 (Troop) Bike squad, Sammael in a speeder, and Belial. 2 potential KPs. He had an easy time with this mission.

Hey, I played him! And those were the only 2KP's I got from him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for the battle report "summaries" but as I didn't take notes (or rather, didn't have time to take notes), I can only rely on what few pictures I took during and my fading memories to tell the story. Also, I forgot to take a lot of pictures as I was too engrossed in some of the battles, so these reports won't be as detailed as some of my other ones. Lastly, for all you dakkalites who went to the tournament, if I get any of the details of my battles wrong, please feel free to let me know and I will correct it.

Using the Adepticon Primer missions, each scenario had 3 win conditions (or mission objectives). Basically if you achieve more mission objectives than your opponent, you win. In the case of a tie, the winner is then the player with 185+ Victory Points more than his opponent.


---------------------------------------------------


MISSION 3
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Initiative: Dark Eldar
Mission Objectives:

1. Annihilation.

2. Seize Ground - 5 objectives.

3. Assassinate. Kill the opponent's designated commander. Mine was the Swarmlord. His was his succubus.


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For my third game, I faced the new Dark Eldar. Mike was also 1 win and 1 draw coming into this game. He had an interesting build with a mix of mech and infantry and using the Webway portal. I was glad when I didn't see him take any venoms or splinter weaponry, but I was in for quite a surprise at how much stuff was to come out of the WWP. You could say that he blind-sided me with his army.


Opponent: Mike's Dark Eldar

Succubus - Agoniser
Haemonculus - Power weapon
Haemonculus - Webway portal

8x Wyches - Plasma grenade launcher, Haywire grenades, Agoniser, Raider w/Aethersails
8x Wyches - Plasma grenade launcher, Haywire grenades, Power weapon
3x Wracks
3x Wracks

Beast pack - 3 Beastmasters, 3 Razorwings, 5 Khymaerae
6x Reavers - 2x Heat lances, Power weapon
6x Reavers - 2x Heat lances, Venom blade

Ravager - Flickerfields
Ravager - Flickerfields
Razorwing - Night shields


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Dark Eldar deployment. He deploys only the ravagers, razorwing and the haemonculus with WWP (hidden behind his building). I was surprised that he actually opted to go first against me, especially in an objectives game.


My deployment.

His Turn 1. The haemonculus moves forwards and drops off the WWP. His razorwing fires at my Swarmlord. It kills off some gaunts with its shattershard missiles but otherwise fails to hurt my HQ unit. I believe the ravagers each put 1W on a unit of hive guards.


My Turn 1. My nids advance. My tervigon uses Onslaught on one of my hive guards.


My hive guards immobilise his right ravager (thanks to Onslaught) and blow away his haemonculus. My t-fex stuns his razorwing.


His Turn 2. Only 1 unit of reavers come in and 1 unit of wracks. The wracks come in on the right behind the helipad and out of LOS. His shooting puts 2W on my tyrannofex.


My Turn 2. My nids advance. Tervie takes 1W from perils while trying to use one of its powers. (Ignore the turn counter as I took this picture at the beginning of turn 3.)


I fire my biovores into his reavers but none lands directly. I only kill 1. My hive guards blow up his right ravager.



His Turn 3. Holy sh*t! Almost everything that matters comes in - beast pack, wyches, HQ and reavers. He gets ready for a massive mult-assault, intend on wiping me out through combat resolution.


I apologize, but this is the last picture of this battle as I was too engrossed in the ensuing rumble to take more pictures. I catch too very lucky breaks here. His wychestar unit, only 2" away from my right hive guards, rolls a 1,1 for his difficult terrain test and fails their charge. His other wyches also fail their difficult terrain test to charge my left hive guards. Thus, only his reavers (my left hive guards) and his beastpack (my termagants and right hive guards) charge, choosing not to charge my Swarmlord without his wychestar unit. The reavers wipe out my 2 hive guards and his beast pack almost wipe out my gants and right hive guards.


My Turn 3. My tervigon goes to help out and spawns 10+ termagants without crapping out. My left termagants go to shoot at his reavers but because of FNP, fails to kill any. My tyrannofex goes up to his left wyches and drop it's desiccator template on them, killing all but 2.

Then both biovore units fire at his wychestar. The first one scatters directly onto my newly-spawned termagants, killing most of them! I had forgotten that I had cast FNP on them, but a little later on I remembered and my opponent was nice enough to let me take my FNP saves...5 gants came back to life. Then I catch another very lucky break. The second biovore barrage lands directly onto his wychestar. After cover saves, I manage to kill off about half of his wyches. But more importantly, his wychestar unit gets pinned!

My t-fex then assaults his 2 wyches (they draw combat with 0 wounds each) and Swarmy assaults his beasts. He wipes out my termagants, but that is not enough as my Swarmlord beats and then sweeps them. Swarmy and his guard then consolidates into area terrain for cover.


His Turn 4. His empty raider comes in and immobilises itself in difficult terrain. His last squad of wracks also comes in and gets inside the immobilised raider. I'm don't quite remember what he did on his shooting phase, but it wasn't very much. His left reavers shoot and then assault my left termagants. After combat res, I am down to 1 gant left. His right reavers go and multi-assault my termagants and tervigon and wipe out most of the gants after combat res.


My Turn 4. Once again, my tervigon spawns another 10+ gants and they run off to claim the top-right objective (on the helipad). Biovore fires onto his wracks on the helipad (near his objective) and kill 1 after cover and FNP. However, they fail their leadership and run away. Swarmy goes after his wychestar, wipes out his succubus and then sweeps the remaining wyches. His left reavers wipe out my lone termagant.


After turn 4, there was less than 10 minutes left and we decided we didn't have enough time to complete 2 player turns so we called it.

My termagants are claiming the top-right objective on the helipad. His last troop choice - the wracks in his immobilised raider - are barely in claiming range of his middle objective so Seize Ground is a draw with 1 objective each.

He's killed 2 units of hive guards and 3 units of termagants. I've killed his succubus, 2 haemonculi, 1 ravager, 1 wyches, 1 wracks and his beastpack so I beat him 7-5 on kill points. I think I also killed either his other ravager or razorwing, but I can't recall which for sure.

Finally, I've killed his commander (succubus) to take the mission objective #3.



Victory to Tyranids!!!


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Post-game Assessment: I dodged a bullet there. Who knows how the game would've turned out had his wychestar made their charges or had they not been pinned. He could've rampaged through my hive guards, biovores, tervigon and termagants. Agonisers don't care about T6. I under-estimated his army. I'm just glad (and lucky) it didn't come back to bite me.

Wow. Just wow. Did you catch a break on that last one or what?
Tremendous luck aside, you did play very well, and delivered a great bat rep. Personally I don't understand the appeal of a succubus over an archon but your opponent's list seemed not atypical of many DE builds out there.
That was the last round I take it?