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PART 1

This was my second Platinum Devil tournament and the best yet IMHO (although the last one was great too).

Army selection usually so easy for me (take what you have!), was made complicated by a change to the points levels previously used. This time we had 7 games split betwixt 1000, 1250 and 1500 point games.

My 1000 point force consisted of the following;

HQ – CCS, Lascannon, 2x Plasmagun and a Master of the Ordnance.

Troop 1 – PCS, 4x Meltagun in a Chimera.
PIS, Power weapon, Commissar with power weapon,Autocannon,meltagun.
PIS, Power weapon,Autocannon, meltagun.

Troop 2 – PCS, 4x Flamer.
PIS, Power weapon, Commissar with power weapon, meltagun.
PIS, Power weapon, meltagun.

Fast Attack 1 – Scout Sentinal with Autocannon

Fast Attack 2 – Scout Sentinal with Autocannon

Heavy Support 1 – Leman Russ, hull Heavy Bolter.

Heavy Support 2 – Griffon, hull Heavy Bolter.

The increase of points levels from 1250 (PD2) to 1500 left me in a bit of a pickle. To get to 1250 points previously I had loaded out the HS sections with Leman Russes and Griffons, so this left me in a dilemma as to what to do, no time for more powerblobs and no desire to include more Leman Russes because of the squadron rules. There could be only one answer in the time – the SENTINWALL!

Yes by a curious twist of fate 4 of these incredibly powerful machines comes in at 250 points and could be painted in the time I had, thus is born the Sentinwall. [dun-dun-duh-duh-duh-duh-daaaar!]

The 1250 point force of the following;

HQ – CCS, Lascannon, 2x Plasmagun and a Master of the Ordnance.

Troop 1 – PCS, 4x Meltagun in a Chimera.
PIS, Power weapon, Commissar with power weapon, Autocannon, meltagun.
PIS, Power weapon, Autocannon, meltagun.

Troop 2 – PCS, 4x Flamer.
PIS, Power weapon, Commissar with power weapon, meltagun.
PIS, Power weapon, meltagun.

Fast Attack 1 – 2x Scout Sentinal with Autocannon

Fast Attack 2 – 2x Scout Sentinal with Lascannon

Fast Attack 3 – 2x Armoured Sentinal with Plasmacannon

Heavy Support 1 – Leman Russ, hull Heavy Bolter.

Heavy Support 2 – Griffon, hull Heavy Bolter.

The 1500 point force;

HQ – CCS, Lascannon, 2x Plasmagun and a Master of the Ordnance.

Troop 1 – PCS, 4x Meltagun in a Chimera.
PIS, Power weapon, Commissar with power weapon, Autocannon, meltagun. meltabomb
PIS, Power weapon, Autocannon, meltagun.

Troop 2 – PCS, 4x Flamer.
PIS, Power weapon, Commissar with power weapon, meltagun.
PIS, Power weapon, meltagun.

Fast Attack 1 – 2x Scout Sentinal with Autocannon

Fast Attack 2 – 2x Scout Sentinal with Lascannon

Fast Attack 3 – 2x Armoured Sentinal with Plasmacannon

Heavy Support 1 – Leman Russ, hull Heavy Bolter.

Heavy Support 2 – 2x Griffon, hull Heavy Bolter.

Heavy Support 3 - Leman Russ, hull Heavy Bolter, Heavy Bolter sponsons.

So after a fast drive on the M2 I arrived in beautiful Canterbury, home to saints, students and the Platinum Devil.

With many well-known Dakkanauts in attendance this promised to be a good event. My excitement was well placed and there were many good tables in the hall and many fantastic armies to play against.

BTW Sorry if this is a bit wordy and not many photos here as I tend to get a it into it and forget the photo opportunities that present themselves and allot of those that I did take were pants!

Round 1 – 1000 points, Victory Points, Pitched Battle vs Battlecannon it Phil

Phil was someone that I had not played against before but was known to me from a previous tournament (Silver Sorcerer) as a very skilled player of IG. Phil had made the long journey down from Middlesbrough and as part of his very early morning get away had left all of his tanks behind leaving him with a much depleted force roster. Good news for me but this left Phil with a scramble to make an army out of what he had with him. In the end this consisted of a CCS, a Vendetta, 3x Chimera vets, 10 Ratlings and a 10-12 Rough riders – all expertly painted, but seriously lacking in Heavy Support giving Phil a real challenge in trying to develop in effect a new playing style on the hop!

Phil set up with his Vendetta front and centre and Chimera vets evenly spread across the battlefield using their vet lascannon’s from the hatches to snipe at my vehicles. Ratlings were placed high atop a building on the left of centre to harass any advancing troops. Finally the Roughriders were placed behind cover on Phil’s right to advance around cover and towards my centre.

My response was to place my Griffon opposite the Roughriders on my left with the Leman Russ guarding its flank and looking to down the Vendetta if the opportunity arose. The flamer PCS and one power blob stood too to the right of this looking to advance towards Phil’s HQ and screen the vehicles from the roughriders.

My centre was held by the other powerblob, CCS, Chimera, to the right of this went the two sentinels in cover to snipe at the vendetta and chimera flanks.

The game started off with the RR’s cantering forward and a fusillade of lascannon fire peppering my army. In what seemed to be theme for Phil in this game some mediocre dice rolling only saw one all-powerful sentinel in flames. The ratlings to ok at at the AC blob and started the task of downsizing them.

In response the left hand side powerblob advanced at haste seeking to get in cover and pot shots were taken at tanks and aircraft alike for little effect. Finally the Griffon let rip and took out an impressive 4 horsemen in one blast.

Thus it continued for a few turns until the final face off. Phil having advanced his CCS chimera disgorged them to flame and assault the powerblob. Despite taking a fair hiding the powerblob took its licks and hit back overwhelming their plucky foe over the course of a couple of turns. In response to my fast approaching melta armed chimera Phil swung his Vendetta over to the right. Here it met its fate as a battlecannon shot brew it up and disgorged its now diminished veteran contents on a hill. In the open they were then targeted by the Griffon who despatched a good number sending (I think?) them packing off of the board. TO called time on the round.

A count up of the remaining units showed that while I has suffered some casualties Phil was rather more mauled and I had well over the 150 point difference to claim a victory. This came as somewhat of a surprise as Phil is a rather good player and I always seemed to feel under threat in this game. Unlucky rolls for Phil and the opposite for me made this look rather more one sided than it should have been. Phil’s scratch force certainly didn’t aid him and consisted of the perfect type of targets for me.

Good game, great opponent but I do not imagine that I will be quite so fortunate the next time our paths cross.

Round 2 –1000 points, Bombardment, Table Halves vs Arakasi (Orks)

Another familiar face from the Silver Scorcerer. Arakasi’s Deffwing and jumping trucks are real thing of beauty so this was going to be fun.

The Deffwing consisted of a KFF MekBoss and Warboss with attendant units of Nobs and boyz in 4 trucks plus a pair of copters. He deployed en mass centrally ready it appeared to rush and grab the two bunched objectives, with the copters advancing on either flank.

For my part I deployed the AC Blob on the Left to cover the objectives and hopefully target the copter, the other opposite the Orks with the flamer PCS, finally I deployed my CCS far on my right with clear lines of sight to all objectives. All other units were in reserve.

Using the cover on 1st turn night rules Arakasi sped all of his units forward towards the objects and one of my blobs seeking cover where possible. All I could manage was a few pot shots in the darkness, one of which fortunately stunned the Meks truck causing a re-jig to the Ork advance. To the right the Ork copter was targeted by the CCS and wounded.

The Orks then advanced again closing on the objectives. With the dawn upon us my reserves arrived to support my threatened units in the middle, with the Chimera PCS arriving on the right to push to the far objective. Leman Russ and Sentinel targeted the trucks and started to do their grim work. A destroyed truck received the “Careened” ramshackle result and flew towards my lines and exploded killing guardmen and passengers aplenty and disgorging the Mek and his unit close by.

The next turn resulted in a curious (for me) change in the game. The Warboss’ truck the tank assaulted my meltablob at full pace and was destroyed in a Death or Glory attack from one of the squad meltagunners, exploding for the full 6”! Some how casualties were relatively light (4 men mean nothing to the guard, pah!) but the Orks also took a similar number of dead. The remainder then attached the blob from the wreckage. This combat was pivotal as it was held only 4-5” away from an objective.

In the assault phase Arakasi attacked and wiped out the Flamer PCS and consolidated in terrain. In the Warboss vs Blob assault Arakasi had the worst luck and only managed to kill 1 or 2 guardsmen. In response the two PW sergeants and PW commissar cut through the Warboss’ squad leaving him alone and wounded but holding in combat.

In my turn 4 my right flank PCS finally made it to the objective and set up camp. The melee back at the other two objectives finished with the Warboss’s death and the TO called time on the round. This resulted in a 1-0 win to me. This was another really enjoyable game against another great opponent (In fact I’ll stop saying that because it was true of all of the PD3 players).


Round 3 - 1250 points, Assassination, Table Quarters vs Yiawchuah (Deathwing)After lunch I found my opponent to be Yiawchuah (winner of the Silver Scorcerer – gulp!). His force consisted of 20 Terminators welding a variety of TH & SS, Lightningclaws and Cyclone missile launchers, an AC/Las Pred and Belail. Having convinced myself that he would be deep striking, I set up rather conservatively but with a Melta Blob and flamer PCS forward on my left; the remainder of my force was spread out in as much cover as I could get.

Yiaw then completely wrong footed me a set up at maximum range in cover (note to self: reserve more!). This had me puzzled to the effect that I didn’t work out what was going on until the 2nd turn..........

Fom the start a fusillade of missiles struck home against an exposed scout walker squadron, to which they eventually succumbed. Having gained a victory point and in a most un-Space Mariney move they withdrew back towards their own corner and deeper into cover – even a bit of light hearted banter pointing out the disgrace he was bringing on his Chapter would not persuade Yiaw to engage! What followed was a number of turns where I snaked a blob out to bring the SM to combat while taking the spoadic missile fire. I had also unwittingly contrived to place my vehicles in a bottleneck and couldn’t effectively bring them to bear. My only hope was using the Master of Ordnance to destroy Yiaw’s Predator which would have won me the game (HS was worth 3VP under tournament rules). Naturally it missed consistently and Yiaw pulled off a 1-0 win.

Losing to Yiaw wasn’t a surprise but this really did highlight what a different level he was playing at (Creed-like he was). Not the first outing that the Sentinwall was after but I was more that happy to buy a victory pint for such a sound bloke and genius player.

Moar to come later...

I await more with anticpation. What do you mean "where's mine?"

notprop wrote:PART 1

This was my second Platinum Devil tournament and the best yet IMHO (although the last one was great too).

I reckon the snow had a big say in this

Arakasi wrote:I await more with anticpation. What do you mean "where's mine?"

Sorry mate, I don't follow?

It was a pre-emptive answer to a not (yet) asked question - or a sorry attempt at humour over the web. Either way - feel free to ignore (apart for the waiting with anticipation part)

Ah context is all important!

For that I shall select an extra special mug for you my friend.

So he killed a sentinel and then retreated? Nice.

Sounds like kind of a boring game, but he definitely had a strategy going in.

Curiously it wasn't.

It was rather more like a game of chess. I actually found it very enlightening since my usual approach is something like Raaaahhh keel it allllll wiff gunz!!!!!!!!!

I really had to work to approach Yiaw but was ultimately hamstrung by my deployment. I think things like this really give you a chance to put some thought into the game and not just either have a shooty or a choppy army.

Platinum devil looks like a really cool tourney. Your sentinel army is a break from the norm (and thus, also very cool).