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Alright so quick run down if you were not part of the original voting:

My local gaming group is hosting a 2000 point tournament on Dec. 10th. So I thought it would be fun to let the dakka users not only pick which army I use, but also pick the models I bring. I will have a series of polls on here, 1 to decide the top 3 armies. Then I will list what models I have in each of those armies and you all can post a suggested army list for the army. I will take 2 of the suggested army list from 3 armies and put them in a poll. Then the users get to vote which of the 6 list wins. Upon Completion of the tournament I will let you all know how you did via battle reports. Let the voting begin

List Guidelines:
WAAC list
A poorly built list
A net list
a well balanced list that will be fun to play, with a possibility of being competitive

The first pole for the top 3 armies to take will last 3 days!

TOP 3 ARMY Poll results:

Which army should I take to the tournament? (pick top 3)
Dark Eldar 18% [ 20 ]
Dark Angels 8% [ 9 ]
Mechanized Imperial Guard 16% [ 18 ]
Grey Knights 14% [ 16 ]
Sisters of Battle 7% [ 8 ]
Chaos Space Marines 13% [ 15 ]
Blood Angels/Space Marines 12% [ 13 ]
Foot Imperial Guard 12% [ 14 ]

I will combine the two imperial guard into one list from each since there were so many IG votes so people have to pick from the following armies:

DARK ELDAR
GREY KNIGHTS
IMPERIAL GUARD (one foot heavy, one mechanized)

Ill post what all I have available for each army this weekend and we can start on getting some army list submitted. Thank you everyone who praticipated in the preliminary voting. Now comes the fun part of making up list following the guidelines of course.

Alright the users have spoken. The list are as follows:

IG won with the following list being selected:HQ: Company Command Squad w/ Astropath, Officer of the Fleet, 2 Bodyguards, 1 Medic, Krak Grenades, 3 Plasma Guns, and Plasma Pistol on the Commander.
Chimera with Hull HF

Troops: Veteran Squad w/ 3 Melta Guns in a Chimera with Hull HF
Troops: Veteran Squad w/ 3 Melta Guns in a Chimera with Hull HF
Troops: Veteran Squad w/ 3 Melta Guns in a Chimera with Hull HF
Troops: Veteran Squad w/ 3 Melta Guns in a Chimera with Hull HF
Troops: Veteran Squad w/ 3 Plasma Guns in a Chimera with Hull HB
Troops: Veteran Squad w/ 3 Plasma Guns (Ride in a Vendetta)

Fast: Vendetta
Fast: Vendetta

HS: Manticore w/ HF
HS: Manticore w/ HF
HS: Leman Russ Executioner w/ Plasma Cannon Sponsons

The 601st Mech Squadron mobilizes:

My parking lot posing in a parking lot before the tournament (apologize for unpainted not used to this build and I am a 20+ Credit college student)


Round 1 Opponent: Travis and his Imperial Fist

List: (didnt manage to get a copy so rough rundown)
Lysander
Librarian
Sniper scouts
Land Raider redeemer with HB sponsons with full terminator squad inside
2 vindicators
2 full tactical squads in rhino's
1 sternguard unit in a drop pod

Mission 1:
Pitched Battle
Primary: 5 Objectives (Center of table, center of each board quarter)
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Table Quarters (Total VP in the quarter, units count toward the one they are in the majority of, if no majority pick one)


I win first turn and deploy with my manticore's always seeking cover and scout my two vendetta moving one to the left flank and the one with the squad up the right flank.

Turn 1 see's me wreck one of his vindicators and stun the other as well as wrecking one of the rhino's. Not a bad round of shooting. Now here comes his drop pod.

His melta guns immolize the demolisher. His dismounted tactical squad puts a rocket into my command vehicle and they are quickly sent sprawling in the ensuing explosion. Luckily they had a medic standing by. His landraider power of the machine spirits a multi-melta into the vendetta, luckily one hell of a pilot only loses a lascannon.

Another angle showing how uncomfortably close lysander is to my lines.

Mass fire brings the sternguard crashing down, unfortunately lysander takes the hits in stride and is still standing at the end of the phase. I manage to stun the vindicator with the vendetta while the manticore continue to only shake or stun the heavy armor of the land raider.

The battle line continues to hold with minimal losses but is extremely exposed atm.

The landraider wont go away and the terminators come up to surround the poor plasma gunners in the Black Chimera it looks grim but the guardsman sounded over the vox promising to hold. The squad in the rhino disembarks and unleashes hell into the side of the other chimera that fired at the sternguard. The result is everything but a wreck or destroy and the poor guardsman inside are in a tin box that is shaking wildly. Lysander says its hammering time and charges the demolisher.

If you think the side view is bad look from my view. Atleast from this point of view lysander is hardly seen The other tactical squad is rushing for the middle.

The melta squad by the manticores has seen enough and moves to rid the world of that pesky yellow landraider. As you can tell Lysander beat the hell out of the tank R.I.P. Demolisher. The squad inside the Black Chimera holds there ground. The plasma squad in the vendetta goes objective hunting. The far vendetta turns its sights on the lone figure with the hammer.

What remains of the CCS moves up to shoot at the angry hammering man. The last melta squad that was inactive on the left flank moves up to save their comrades while the other rushes those pesky snipers that keep shooting at the commander. The man that is lysander is finally mortally wounded and forced to retire... for now...<<<

The vendetta kills the vindicator!

The manticores shoot and hit the poor squad of guardsman who didnt already have a bad day being surrounded by terminators. All but 2 die and they become pinned but refuse to give their ground one even making gestures to the enemy terminators . The Melta Squad finally kills the yellow abomination that is the enemy land raider. It sits in place as its tracks come grinding to a hault.

The terminators respond in kind to the rude gestures of the guardsman the librarian runs around to take out the melta squad.

The Guardsman hurry to sieze ground as the mission becomes critical. The terminators fresh from killing the last of the plasma guardsman rush to help the librarian. Both Vendetta fly all out with one of them narrowly missing a tree. The Remnants of the CCS rushes into the middle objective fearlessly. The squad in the tin box gets out and attempts to surround there attackers.

Another View of the final placements. Which included the manticore's pinning the squad in the open.

The librarian ends it by smashing one of the manticores with his titan like strength.

Game ends:
Primary: IG
Secondary: IG
Tertiary: IG

Analysis: This game was tough. I definitely did not like extra armor on the Landraider. Makes them even harder to keep away. My opponent had a couple of tough breaks and had a good chance for a while there but the IG just proved to be too mobile and had too much fire power. I definitely could of played it differently here and not had my CCS so exposed. I was skeptical of people investing so much points into them but the medic really payed off and they were a definite factor in this game.

Round 2 will be up tomorrow. Enjoy and comments are welcomed.

You had good ground and a good first turn of shooting (and a solid Mech List). very dominating performance! Well done. The Command Squad seems a bit top heavy but I see that it served you well.

Even if it meant playing musical transports on turn 1 you should have put Meltaguns in the Vendettas. Every time I look at the pictures for the first couple of turns my brain is screaming 'why hasn't the Land Raider died yet', Lascannons and Manticores can kill them, but are nowhere near as reliable as melta at short range.

You had first turn (I would have done this even if going second actually, his shooting is minimal), so put a Melta squad in each of the Vendettas, Scout forward then move and disembark within 6" and you bag yourself a Land Raider and his Vindicator turn 1 (both were is terribly exposed positions, the same way your Demolisher was easy to get to). The Plasma Vets wouldn't be in range turn 1 anyway, so you deploy them behind the empty Chimeras (since you can't deploy in them) and embark turn 1. At worst you don't kill his Land Raider and his has to divert part of his army to deal with your squad which is still an acceptable result as most likely it would be the Terminators, which delays them hitting the core of your army and gets them outside the Land Raider.

Do you guys not believe in terrain at your gaming group?
As soon as I read that you'd got first turn and saw the table it was pretty much a forgone conclusion who had won the game...

nicely done. I like the list *I have similar one I'm building*

how do you handle he inevitable storm lord + scarab lists though?

kaiservonhugal wrote:You had good ground and a good first turn of shooting (and a solid Mech List). very dominating performance! Well done. The Command Squad seems a bit top heavy but I see that it served you well.

I usually dont run mine that heavy but it payed off giving the squad feel no pain and sacrificial body guards. I might run them that way in the future now.

Powerguy wrote:Even if it meant playing musical transports on turn 1 you should have put Meltaguns in the Vendettas. Every time I look at the pictures for the first couple of turns my brain is screaming 'why hasn't the Land Raider died yet', Lascannons and Manticores can kill them, but are nowhere near as reliable as melta at short range.

You had first turn (I would have done this even if going second actually, his shooting is minimal), so put a Melta squad in each of the Vendettas, Scout forward then move and disembark within 6" and you bag yourself a Land Raider and his Vindicator turn 1 (both were is terribly exposed positions, the same way your Demolisher was easy to get to). The Plasma Vets wouldn't be in range turn 1 anyway, so you deploy them behind the empty Chimeras (since you can't deploy in them) and embark turn 1. At worst you don't kill his Land Raider and his has to divert part of his army to deal with your squad which is still an acceptable result as most likely it would be the Terminators, which delays them hitting the core of your army and gets them outside the Land Raider.

I fired at the land raider with 4 D3 S10 rockets in the first two turns. It was my plan on dealing with it because my manticore's really didnt have a better target. The vendetta's major target was the vindicators, if I could take them out it would cripple his shooting phase even further.

comrade_nikolai wrote:Do you guys not believe in terrain at your gaming group?
As soon as I read that you'd got first turn and saw the table it was pretty much a forgone conclusion who had won the game...

Ya, this particular table was, I felt kind of bad for my opponent.

sudojoe wrote:nicely done. I like the list *I have similar one I'm building*

how do you handle he inevitable storm lord + scarab lists though?

Havent faced it yet but this army has a lot of dakka and High strength instant killers. Arent they toughness 3? That is a multi laser S6 Instant Kill

I apologize in advance some of the pictures are a little blurry.

Round 2 Mission:

Spearhead
Primary: Annihilation (kill points)
Secondary: 3 Objectives (center, and center of the 2 non deployment zones)
Tertiary: Nominate an opponent's HQ, it must die, the one your opponent nominates of yours must live.

Opposing Forces: Iron Hands (Vanilla Space Marines)
HQ:
Darnath Lysander
Librarian

Elite:
10 man terminator squad (7 powerfist, 2 chainfist, power weapon on sgt) 2 cyclones
Command Squad with apothecary in Razorback las plas
Dreadnought twin linked autocannons

Troops:
Tactical squad in rhino PC, PG
Tactical squad in rhino PC, PG
5 scout snipers

Heavy:
Vindicator

Pregame analysis: Well it seems Captain Lysander didnt take defeat likely and has already arranged another chapter to engage the imperial forces for accusations against the local governor that have been proved false, its merely a battle over someones pride now. Im not looking forward to another 4 wound Terminator with a storm shield. Especially after last battles close encounter. Lets see if I can continue to hold the line. It is annihilation. That is never good when your a guard player and even worse when your playing against a terminator heavy force.


I win the roll off to go first, fortune is with me. The table is scarce so I take the side that gives both of us some cover. Again I deploy the manticore behind some cover. I missed the first turn or so. My vendetta both scout to flanks and my demolisher hits a steel rod and it wedges into the tank treads stopping the lumbering behemoth before she gets going. The damage I cause to the enemy is minimal but does involve blowing up the razorback and forcing the command squad to walk while there troops ride. haha

The terminators advance and the cyclones turn and unleash a barrage of rockets into the vendetta with the plasma gunners, several die in the crash the remainder are forced to evacuate as they are no longer combat affective.

His scouts continue to hold down the left objective.

He advances his rhino up as I bide my time waiting for the chance to hit lysander. I wont underestimate him again. My 2 chimera on the left move out to move up and flame some scouts. My manticore blows the gun of of the vindicator.

Down to 6 terminators and lysander and the command squad has now taken casualties. The demolisher is still effective even though it lost its main gun.

I manage to pop his other rhino and the squad runs over to the dreadnought and they both remain behind bolstered defenses.

The vindicator moves up to come and ram the chimera's on the left flank. The enemy command squad leaves their crater and attempts to advance but there pace is slow. The terminators move up behind cover in the middle and the cyclons launch a barrage at the far vendetta. The pilot does his best but he loses a gun and an engine takes a hit he is forced to make an emergency landing but his weapons systems are still online.

It is almost time to either go big or go home. Im not doing the damage I need to do.

The Chimera on the left flank moves up to flame scouts and sadly most of them survive still. The other chimera has had enough of the vindicator and the melta gunners pop the hatch and manage to hit the driver as they wreck the vehicle. The enemy command squad see's the brunt of the fire power and after the smoke clears a wounded librarian is all that remains.

2 more terminators fall to the torrent of fire.

The librarian stumbles up to the terminators as they finally get behind the wall preparing for the charge. The last tactical squad in the rhino moves to the center to reinforce the terminators while the other tactical squad moves to reinforce the scouts. The chimera takes fire and is unable to shoot at the scouts next turn.

The commander makes the call and the orders go big or go home come through. All units advance and prepare to fire. The CCS leads the way coming out just in front of the terminators as commander meets eyes with Lysander for the second time in the campaign. They give the order to fire as all 3 units unload on the terminators. They begin to drop as lysander begins to drop ignoring wounds. The plasma gunners fire from their transport killing the librarian. The last unit of melta gunners in their transport pop the hatch and get a lucky shot off knocking the opposing captain finally to the ground where his own drag him from the field again mortally wounded. The regimental advisors ask the commander how he can stomach that man charging them. He responds, "I dont I need to go to my quarters for a change."

The scouts charge the chimera and damage it further again disallowing the squad inside to risk popping the hatch. The rhino in the middle decides not to disembark due to the number of enemy in the vicinity and they try to fire from the top hatch no avail.

The tactical squad moves into the ruins and prepares to engage the rhino with the scouts.

The rhino in the middle is now immobilized and without a weapon. It doesn't look good for the Iron Hands as the battle continues to develop to a one sided affair.

All squads mount back up and they surround the middle rhino. It is summarily exploded and no quarter is taken for the space marines. They are killed to a man. Governors orders.

With the battle all but won my opponent assess what damage he could possibly do.

His Tactical squad in the ruin's gives one last hoorah and charges the chimera exploding it and killing most of the passengers but the stubborn guardsman refuse to leave the field and we call the game here as the commander refuses to finish off the enemy. "There is no glory in killing the defeated, we are all on the same side just fighting for different leaders.

End result.
Primary: IG
Secondary: IG
Tertiary: IG

Postgame: The army handled them quite well again I used my speed and mass fire to great effect and managed to kill one of the hardest people in the game to kill for the second straight game. My opponents army was built to fight SM or MEQ not IG. I am one of the few IG players in the area and it is hard to make an army that is both good against IG and good against everything else. Had my opponent been a little better on his saves he might of been able to make it to me a little quicker but alas the imperial guard prevail and again I am impressed with the CCS. It is deadly and survives a lot of the overheats thanks to a medic throwing ice packs at any of the gunners who mess up firing the dangerous weapon.

My next round opponent is one of the best in the area and I finally get to play him missouri vs kansas showdown. Unfortunately the matchup is unfavorable but doable.

Mission 3: Opponent: Marc Tomlinson (won sweepstakes winner at bugeater GT) Opposing Forces: Eldar
Dawn of War
Primary: Victory Points
Secondary: Capture and Control
Tertiary: Your opponent's most expensive unit must be destroyed and yours must survive the game. In the case of a tie, the opposing player nominates which most expensive unit he will be trying to destroy.

Report will be up tomorrow

Havent faced it yet but this army has a lot of dakka and High strength instant killers. Arent they toughness 3? That is a multi laser S6 Instant Kill

main problem with depending on multilasers and what not is that alot of the time things will be night fighting and scarabs can make a mess of mech IG pretty badly along with all the lightning bolts comming your way.

I'm not liking all the solar pulses/night fight mass assaults and infinate troop spawning. Hard for long range fire power to work.

I played Marc in the 3rd round of the NOVA Invitational, real cool guy. A bit quiet during his games, uses an unorthodox list but uses it quite effectively and intelligently.

Clauss wrote:I played Marc in the 3rd round of the NOVA Invitational, real cool guy. A bit quiet during his games, uses an unorthodox list but uses it quite effectively and intelligently.

Ya, he was mentioning attending the nova invitational. Hopefully I can attend this year.

Now to the report.

Mission 3: Opponent: Marc Tomlinson (won sweepstakes winner at bugeater GT) Opposing Forces: Eldar
Dawn of War
Primary: Victory Points
Secondary: Capture and Control
Tertiary: Your opponent's most expensive unit must be destroyed and yours must survive the game. In the case of a tie, the opposing player nominates which most expensive unit he will be trying to destroy.

His army list:

HQ:
Eldrad
Yriel

Elite:
5 Fire Dragons w/ exarch
5 Fire Dragons w/ exarch
6 Harlequin Troupe (shadowseer, death jester, troup master)

Troops:
8 Dire Avengers w/ exarch in wave serpent (energy field)
8 Dire Avengers w/ exarch in wave serpent (energy field)
12 Guardians w/ warlock and weapon platform shuriken cannon
3 Guardin jetbikes 1 shuriken cannon 2 TL catapults

Heavy:
Falcon (holo-field)
Falcon (holo-field)
2 warwalkers w/ scatter laser

Initative once again is siezed by the imperial guard who plunge into the darkness without fear.

Pre-game analysis: I have the superior firepower but Eldrad can be one tough cookie to crack and night fighting doesnt help me in a victory points game when I want to take advantage of my superior firepower, what he has over me is durability and survivability. I will have to take out his speed first and foremost and then target prioritize the fire dragons then eldrad pending the threat situation. Well without further a due here is the report.

I missed the initial deployment pictures it was getting late and I was getting tired and was focusing on the game.


I deployed again with the manticores seeking cover. I should not have deployed them together. It makes them one hell of a target. Not to mention the Leman russ is his kill for the mission as it is the most expensive unit. To sum it up I deployed poorly and he moved exactely as I would of if I were in his position. He deployed the guardians in cover on his objective. I have mine in the area terrain in the center of my deployment where one chimera with melta gunners comfortably sit and hold it. He turbo boost all of his vehicles onto the board.

The left flank is weak I placed both of my vendetta over here and scouted them up preparing to flank if he did rush in. One unit of melta gunners sits here with them.

His harlequins joined by both characters run onto the board and fleet. The bikes turbo boost on as well. His guardians remain in cover and pop a few shots off at me.

Would of had another picture here after my turn but nothing does any damage. His vehicles manage to ward off any damage I do or I roll a 6 and a 1 on the damage result. So now its his turn.

He turbo boosted one falcon up with the fire dragons, my melta gunners who were stunned in their transport jumped out and shot at it. It ignored my stunned result making it a shaken. They charged and it and again stunned it which was again ignored . His other falcon moves up and the Fire dragons get out and shoot up the executioner. Somehow it survives but it is immobilized cant shoot and looses two guns. His bikes move up but fail to do anything to my other chimera. My command squad moves up with another squad and eliminates the fire dragons responsible for the attack on the executioner. The melta gunners take out the falcon. The manticores unleash their payload and take out the dire avengers transport. The next manticore takes out the squad that disembarked.

My vendetta come around and pop shots at the other dire avengers transport but have no such luck. His fire warriors disembark from their transport and head towards the manticores.

Eldrad and company advance unhindered(couldnt shoot at them because the dancing craziness better then nightfight rule they have).

gak hits the fan . His falcon flies away from my guardsman. His harlequins kill my melta gunners transport and the dire avengers which have disembarked shoot the melta squad off the board. The pesky little red devils blew up one manticore and are now working on finishing off the other. It is looking grim for the guardsman.

Oh did I mention his warwalkers showed up? They wreck the vendetta with the plasma gunners. The guardsman pile out the back and are not pleased.

The melta squad moves up to take out the last dire avenger transport which as you can see in the center it survives the encounter without a weapon and the inability to shoot . My plasma gunners disembark as there transport cant shoot and they attempt to do some damage before dying horribly. The CCS advances in their transport. Not a lot seems to be going the imperial way and it appears the xenos now have a clear advantage. His one remaining fire dragon aka red devil leaves the crippled manticore and runs toward the big shiny take. His dire avengers move over to unleash hell into the melta guardsman.

His lone remaining falcon moves to the far left flank with the dire avenger transport most likely preparing to make a go for my objective.

His red devil explodes the executioner and his dire avengers charge the remaining imperial guardsmen on the ruin and the combat locks for one turn but is one sided with eldrad involved. I move my vendetta over to make a play on his objective. The Melta gunners chimera does the same but the squad itself stays behind to take a shot at the falcon. Again it eludes any serious damage as the driver and flies away.My plasma gunners try and avenge the vendetta on the left flank shooting the war walkers. One gets blown up and the other loses its weapon. It looks pissed and moves to charge. My CCS moves to fire into the rear of the wave serpent. It ignores the damage aswell. His bikes on the far right flank fire into the plasma gunners. They promptly flee from the field

My squad on the objective gets out and the chimera makes a move to kill the last red devil and the last 3 dire avengers. Both attempts fail. Multi lasers go into the fire dragon as well to no avail the little devil just wont die lol.

His harlequins finished off the manticore and moved towards my objective. My command squad decides to disembark and I have the choice of the 3 targets. I elect to shoot into the harlequins thinking eldrad was only T3.... a mistake I wont make again. None the less I roll miserably and only do 3 would and he saves 1. My vendetta moves over to contest his objective and my chimera moves to get a rear shot on his wave serpent but shoots at the red devil instead who survives it of course. On the far left flank my plasma gunners defeat his war walker in combat only for it to explode and force them to panick and run. Luckily they rally before games end. My melta gunners on the objective try to move towards the falcon but roll 1,1. They still manage to finally blow the vehicle up but left themselves to close to the enemy.

Nothing significant happens. His crazy character kills everyone in the CCS with some special attack. Eldrad and a harlequin charge my squad on the objective. His remaining dire avengers kill themself on difficult terrain I should of shot terrain at them lol. Game ends.

Primary: Eldar
Secondary: Niether claim
Tertiary: Eldar

Eldar Victory.

Post game and tournament analysis: All in all I had a lot of fun at this tournament and I enjoyed the army that you all came up with in was nice to get out of my norm and play a random build that I normally would not play. Mark was a hell of an opponent and a good guy was a fun game even though I was getting smashed. He took advantage of any and ever mistake I made and he knows his army up down and backwards. I look forward to are much famed rematch. Missouri will take the next encounter.

Do to me getting 0 points for the final game I ended the tournament in 4th place and avoided prize support. Matters not though because I got better then prize support I had more fun at a tournament then I had in a long while. Might have to bring back poll armies in future tournaments like the 3500 point mega battle on january 8th. Hope you all enjoy the read and sorry if the pictures are a little blurry at times I use my cell phone to take them. In addition, the last game jumped a bit usually me taking pictures in his turn it was a close game and I was getting worn out. Until next time. Have a Merry Christmas!