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Wild West Shoot out Game #5

So here we are after 5 games the inevitable happened and Dave and I met up. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later like 2 trains on a collision course. Some history between us is that we have been playing each other for over 5 years. When I lived in LA I would drive down to Game Empire in San Diego for RTTs where he was dominating the local tournament scene. So last September we played again for the first time in a long time and I beat him at a local GT event here in Mesa when we met in round #1. I ended up seizing the initiative on him and did bad things to his army. Then we played again in November at Comikazi Con in LA and he beat me in round #3 and went on to the table #1 in the final round. This past week he was in town to visit some relatives and we were able to get in two games and we split our games 1-1. So we are 2-2 in the last 3 months heading into this so this will be the tie breaker!

Also here is a funny story…there is a player here that plays my Nova Open list (which is nearly identical to my list, but I have made slight tweaks and improvements). Dave played my doppelganger in one of the early rounds and beat him, so he has had a lot of experience against my army, and success.

The lists
My Draigowing List
HQ
Draigo
Librarian w/Warding Staff, Shrouding, Might of Titians, Sanctuary, 2 Servo Skulls

Troops
10 Paladins w/3 Psycannons, Master Crafted Psycannon, Warding Stave, 2 Swords, 2 Demonhammers, 3 Halberds, Master Crafted Halberd, Brotherhood Banner

5 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psycannon

Fast Attack
9 Interceptors w/2 Psycannons
Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

Heavy Support
3 Dreadnaughts w/2 Autocannons, Psybolt ammo

David Fay’s Black Templar list
HQ
Marshall w/Bike, Powerfist, Adamantine Mantle, Storm Shield
Emperor’s Champion

Elite
5 Terminators w/2 Cyclone Missile Launchers
5 Terminators w/2 Cyclone Missile Launchers
5 Terminators w/2 Cyclone Missile Launchers

Troops
5 Marines w/Lascanons
5 Marines w/Lascanons
5 Marines w/Lascanons

Fast Attack
3 Land Speeder Typhoons
3 Land Speeder Typhoons
2 Land Speeder Typhoons
Only 28 Missile shots a turn? Couldn’t afford an even 30?


Mission:
Primary: Seize Ground 5 Objectives (10 Points)
Secondary: Assassination Kill the most expensive enemy HQ (6 Points)
Tertiary: Kill points (HQs=3kp Vehicles=2kps everything else=1kp) (4 Points)

Here is my gameplan
I am going to try to tie the primary. I do not have that durable scoring units, and he always contests with his land speeders so winning outright will be a problem. Also it is hard for one unit to control multiple objectives. All he has to do is assault me and he will drag me off of them with I do my pile-in moves so I am going into it looking for a draw. The other factor in play here is that we are at the top table and if I end up with a bad score I might finish out of the money, so it is best to be conservative and try to get points out of the game.

As far as the secondary goes I will try to kill the Marshall if I even get the littlest chance at him. If I can take him down that is 6 points in the bank. Of course he has to kill Draigo, and that is not a task that I would like to have.

The tertiary is going to be tough for both of us. He has a small army as well without too many easy kill points in it so that will not be easy for either of us. We also have the same number of vehicles so it will be close.

Deployment: Pitched battle

The use of grand strategy
Last time we played I scouted with my interceptors and I went after his troops. This time I was tempted to use that, or counter assault because that Marshall on the bike is fast and deadly, and my paladins might be in trouble if they get assaulted my multiple terminators with preferred enemy. He did this last game and took out 5 of my paladins without working up too much of a sweat (see below). In the end it was an objective mission so I chose to make my interceptors and 2 dreadnaughts scoring. I am scared by my game at the Nova Open against Tony Kopach when I did not make my units scoring and I lost because of it. So now whenever there are multiple objectives at play I make my units scoring.

Objective placement
Dave won the dice roll to place the first objective so he is placing 3 and I get to place 2. He places the first one in the upper right corner 12”x12” from the table corner. This does not come as a surprise because one of the failure sources of his army is that he only has 3 minimum sized troops. So to counter this weakness he always places his troops in reserve. This tactic lets him blow anything that might be a threat to his troops off the board before they arrive. He also has so many threats that shooting at the troops are always so far down on the priority list they are often ignored. Since his troops are being reserved he places his objectives as close to the deployment zones as possible. Now my issue is that I have a lot of weak and fragile units and one rock hard troop unit. So what I want to do is to build a triangle of objectives that are 12”x12”x12”. This lets me park my Paladins in the middle of this and I get to hold 3 objectives. So I place my first objective 12” from the objective that Dave placed along the edge of that deployment zone. Then Dave placed his second objective in the opposite corner of where he placed his first one. Since he does not know what table edge he is getting he has to make sure he has objectives near both deployment zones. Then I place my second and last objective completing my triangle. Dave then places his last objective with the other one that is off by itself to create some symmetry incase he does not get the board edge that he wants, he still can hold 2 while trying to contest mine.


Setup
I win the dice roll to go first! I choose to let Dave go first. One of the reasons why is that at Adepticon I went first in a seize ground mission and we ran out of time and my opponent made a last second objective grab in the bottom of the turn, so that event has scared me so much that I almost never go first in an objective game. Another reason why is that it was not random game length, but the game will go a full 7 turns (you read that right, all games lasted 7 turns). So this means 2 things: #1 I know when the game is going to end for an objective grab, and #2 my plan is to deep strike my army so he will only get 5 turns of shooting 28 missiles (+3 lascannons) at me
So when I give him first turn he takes the side with the 3 objectives which I thought he would. It is an advantage to have the deployment zone closest to the 3 objectives, but it is a price I am willing to pay for the larger advantage to go last.

Now what did surprised me was his next move…he placed his whole army in reserve. I guess he knows that I only have 24” shooting and he was going to out-range me and out maneuver me. I did not know if he thought that I was going to set up on the table or not, but my plan was going to Deep Strike my whole army except for my dreadnaughts that were walking on and I did not deviate from this.

To be continued....

Turn #1

Black Templar Turn #1
*crickets chirping*

Grey Knights Turn #1
*tumbleweed blows through the town*

Turn #2
Black Templar Turn #2
Rolling for reserves he gets in everything in except for 2 terminator squads and 3 land speeders.

His 2 land speeders move flat out and get behind the building on the left. Then his terminators joined by the emperor’s champion and the Marshall. His 3 land speeders move behind the only LOS blocking piece of terrain in the center of the board and then his 3 troops are lined up 2” apart on the table edge in the back right.

Grey Knights Turn #2
On my turn I get in 2 dreadnaughts and the strike squad.

Well, that is not good. I need to diminish his firepower and the easiest way to do that is by taking down the land speeders. I starts one of my dreadnaughts behind the building on the left to shoot at the 2 land speeders and the other on the right to shoot at the 3 speeders. I can be behind the building and shoot through the windows without a care because he gets a 4+ save for moving flat our anyways so shooting cover does not matter and it might protect me. There are no good places for the strikes so I deepstrike them behind cover and they drift out into the open. In hindsight I might have put them in the back of the board and just go to ground and try to survive instead of trying to get some shots off with them.

In my shooting phase my dreadnaught shoots at his 2 land speeders and he makes all of his cover saves. My other dreadnaught shoots at his 3 land speeders and since I am in his front arc, and I can only see his side he gets a 3+ cover save, but he fails two of them and I destroy 2 speeders. I guess my bad luck on one squad and my good luck on another equals out. My strike squad shoots at one of his troop squads and he makes all of his saves.

Turn #3

Black Templar Turn #3
This is going to hurt!

He gets the last of his units on and he moves his 2 terminators so that they come on between his troop squads, and flies his 3 speeders over them.

In his shooting phase he unloads into my 2 dreads and my strike squad and he takes them out without too much effort.

Grey Knights Turn #3
I get the last of my units on.

Now I have a choice here to combat squad or not to combat squad? This is an objective mission so I want a lot of troops, but it is also a KP mission, He also has a ton of fire powers and there are pros and cons to both but in the end I choose to keep my units together, Since I am now hurting in the troops department, I move my scoring dreadnaught to the left away from most of his firepower and close to the objectives. My paladins deepstrike right near my objective triangle that I set up. Now here is the problem…what to do with the interceptors? They are one of my 3 troops left, and I want them to shoot, but I do not want them to be blown off of the table. I decided to deepstrike into the middle of the building. The downside is that I could lose some models landing in terrain, but it has LOS blocking walls so that should reduce some of the fire coming in, and I will be within 6” of the librarian so I can pop off a shrouding, I will be near the marshall to try to kill him, and I can get LOS to his 3 land speeder squad to take them down. I end up scattering on my deepstrike so I get 8” closer to him and now everything can see them.

In my shooting phase my dreadnaught shoots at his 2 speeders and stuns them. My interceptors have the option of shooting at his land speeders or running back into the building. I choose to shoot at his land speeders and kill 2, and shoot the missiles off of the third. The paladins stay on point and shoot his troop squad. If I kill all 3 of his troops, the worst that I can do is tie the primary (if he does not table me). I end up doing 17 wounds and he fails his saves the squad is removed.


Here is a close up


Turn #4

Black Templar Turn #4
He moves his terminators up to get closer to my interceptors. He then joins the Marshall to them so there goes my hopes of killing him.

So now that I was down to 3 units left he shoots his terminators on the left at my dreadnaught but I make my cover saves. Everything else in his army unloads on my interceptors. I was within 6” of my librarian so I was able to cast shrouding (and ate a perils of the warp) and get a 3+ cover save, so after all that shooting I only had 2 Interceptors left (1 with a psycannon). They ended up failing there leadership check and running.



Grey Knights Turn #4
Well it is easy to move 3 units! My interceptors rallies and I had no idea what to do with them. I would like to hide them and then use them for a last second objective grab, but there was nowhere to hide. The only place that I could hide was behind the center piece of terrain, but that would be in range of his marshal on the bike. So after too long I used my shunt move to go way back to the objectives near my deployment zone. I was hoping that I could hide behind my dreadnaught, but I could not make it. In fact, after my 30” move I barely had one in cover and the psycannon could not make it to cover. Note: In hindsight I should have hidden behind the building. That way if they marshal comes after me I would have been able to counter attack with the paladins and get the secondary objective but I forgot about that.

For shooting my dreadnaught shot at his 2 land speeder squad and killed one and shot the missile launcher off of the other. My Interceptor psycannon shoots at the single land speeder and stuns it. My paladins unload on his marines on the left and does over 15 wounds to them, and I kill 4, but one is still alive.

Left side of the table:


Right side of the table:


Turn #5

Black Templar Turn #5
Dark Templar forces left:
HQs
3 Terminator squads
5 Marines
1 Marine
Land Speeder
Land Speeder w/no missiles
Land Speeder w/ no missiles

So to preserve his last marine he joins the Emperors Champion to him and starts to run behind the building not only to hide from the paladins, but to head to the objectives on my side of the board. Everything else stays over 12” away from the paladins.

On the left side he shoots his heavy bolter from his land speeder at my Interceptors and I make my saves. He does not have any more shooting on that side except for his terminators and he shoots his missiles at the interceptors and does 3 wounds. I put one on the psycannon and 2 on the regular GK and the psycannon saved, and the GK died. On the other side of the table he shoots everything else at the paladins and I take a few wounds and I lose one paladin to a missile.

Left Side


Right side


Grey Knights Turn #5
I do not know what to do with my Interceptor so I just leave him there. The reason why is that he is not long for this world anyways, so I might as well get 4 shots on the land speeder and take it out since this is a kill point mission and vehicles are worth 2 KPs. My paladins pull back. I have him cornered and I think I will make a stand on the farthest back objective. If I make a ring around it he will not be able to get a land speeder to contest it, and I do not think he will be able to get his troops to the objective that is closest to him and I will win the game 1 objective to 0.

So after leaving my interceptor out in the open and shooting 4 psycannon shots at the land speeder I only stun it…that was not good. My dreadnaught shoots at his troop with the Emperor’s Champion because this game will come down to troops, and I have to kill him. He is about to shoot my interceptor off the board, and the marshall is closing on my dreadnaught, so he will be able to hold these objectives uncontested. I do 3 wounds and he puts 2 on the EC, and one on the marine and he makes all of his saves. My paladins shoot at his one of his land speeders and take it down. Again I need kill points, and I do not want it flying at me at the end of the game and contesting objectives.



Turn #6

Black Templar Turn #6
His Marshal turbo-boosts to be close to my interceptor and dreadnaught.

His one marine keeps running forward on the left and getting closer to the objective. I was wondering why he did not join the marshal to him to increase his durability and chance at survival but I did not realize that he could not run if a bike joined the unit. In the upper right corner his other troop ran forward and I see that I misjudged how fast he can get to the objective that is close to him, and too late I realized that I retreated the paladins too early.

He shoots his 2 terminator squads at the paladins and kills another one (Mathhammer says that 2 squads of terminators shooting 8 missiles a turn will hit 5.3 times, wound 4.4 times and drop .74 paladins a turn not counting the missile that Draigo eats). On the other side of the table he shoots at the interceptor with his other terminator squad and he only has a few stormbolters in range. He hits with 2 stormbolters and 2 missiles. He then rolls to wound and rolls 2 “1”s for the missile launchers and a “1” and a “2” for the stormbolters doing 0 wounds! Well that is a surprise because I had written that guy off.


Grey Knights Turn #6
I move my dreadnaught up because it is getting close to the end of the game and I might get immobilized so I want to be near the objective. I move my interceptor to the other objective trying to get as close to it as I can while being behind the cover without being in the cover so I take a difficult terrain test.

At this time I make the most important roll of the game. It is a difficult terrain test for the paladins. I ended up rolling 3” and that was barely enough. That was not as good as I had wanted, but what it let me do was move 2 psycannons in range of his solo troop and I was able to move Draigo closer to the objective that his troop squad were headed for.

I barely had LOS and range to shoot at his troop and EC with only 2 psycannons but I was able to do about 5 wounds and he split them so that the EC took 3 wounds that the marine took 2 and he failed his saves killing both his Emperor’s Champion and his last troop. Whew! If I was unable to kill that guy it might have won him the game. My Interceptor still shoots at the Land Speeder and still is unable to kill it and just shakes it. My other dreadnaught still struggles to kill a land speeder.


Turn #7
The money turn.

Black Templar Turn #7
The flies a land speeder up to the paladins to contest the objectives that are closest to him. He can’t reach the one in the back that I was planning on holding. He moves his troops up to be within 3” of the objectives but as far away from the paladins as possible.

His terminators shoot up my paladins and I make my saves against the missile launchers. His terminators on the left shoot at my interceptor and I go to ground and I make all of my 3+ cover saves! I (I had to mark this models base for being a hero of the imperium)

His marshall assaults my dreadnaught and does not kill it (that is our first and last assault of the game!)



Grey Knights Turn #7
Well time to see where I am at and what I have to do to win.
The dreadnaught is locked in a combat that he is not going to win so that objective is being contested by the marshall.


The interceptor may, or may not be within 3” of his objective.


It was so close in fact that we had to mark were the objective and the model were and move the terrain out of the way to measure if the interceptor was within 3"



I shoot down his land speeder and Draigo runs onto the objective that his troops are holding.


As you can see he is contesting 2, I am contesting one, and I own 1 giving me the primary objective!!!


End of Game..
Primary: I hold one objective and he holds none.
Secondary: Neither of our HQs died so we did not get this.
Tertiary:
I lost:
Strike Squad
2 Dreadnaughts
=5 Kill Points
He lost:
Emperor’s Champion
2 Space Marine Squads
2 Land Speeder Squadrons
7 Kill points
Primary+ Tertiary =14 points for me and the win!


Another close game with Dave. This one was a nail-biter and neither of us knew who was going to win right up until the end.

He has a ton of missile shots, but when you start to take out his land speeders they lose a lot of shots. Also my army matches up well with his because the Paladins are not damaged by missile launchers as much as other armies are. Add to this is his lack of troops and all I have to do is blow them away and I am in good shape (when ever we play I always go for his troops).

If I had to say that he made one mistake that was being cautious with his terminators at the end of the game. He was losing at that point and had to take long chances. If he assaults my paladins I may or may not be able to kill him, but if he does survive I am dragged off of the objectives. Sure it was long odds that he could have withstood them, but he has to take the chance. All he has to do is have one model survive and I am bunched around him and not owning any objectives.



After the game we were talking and what happened in one of our games earlier in the week and how it affected this game. In that game I had a combat squad of 5 Paladins jumped by 2 terminator squads and the marshall. He ended up winning but took heavy casualties. Because of that combat I was afraid to go near him because I saw how much damage a lot of powerfists with preferred enemy can do to paladins when then only have a 5+ save and they insta-kill them because they are double their toughness. On the other hand Dave saw how much damage that 5 paladins can do to him when he only has a 5+ save and I crippled his units that took the paladins out. The result of this was that we were both scared of each others terminators.

I feel bad for Draigowing in this battle. That's just too many missiles, though not all will be firing at the same time. I'm going to say BT takes this one.

Hahaha!! Being a BT player myself, of course I'd root for Dave !

His list is very similar to mine, except my Marshall is equipped with J/Pack & TH instead of bike + fist. Plus, I only have 2 x 5-men Crusader Sqds.

Anyway, can't wait to read the rest of the report .

All comes down to saves.... but I gotta go with BT

Yes paladins die to missiles after enough hits them.

My deathwing with only had 10 missiles and 2 MM.

And I played a defensive game and killed alot of paladins before he even reached me and then slaughtered them in combat. TH/SS vs paladins is not easy for them with my 3++ and S8 instant death hammers.

So I say BT might do well in this game.

Don't forget what happened the last time these two met up at a tournament though. Dave's dice betrayed him (typical!) and Blackmore tabled him by the end of it. Definitely an interesting re-match and I'm excited to see what happens later in the game. I give the edge to Blackmore's list since he has 2+ saves and Draigo to eat one Instant Death wound per turn. Psycannons are pretty brutal against Land Speeders, as are Psyfleman Dreads.

My guess is that one of them knocks out the other's ranged firepower, then dominates the rest of the game. Dave has more targets in his list, but Blackmoor has Fortitude and higher armor. Tough call!

After 3 turns it does not look good for Draigo. Blackmore defenetly do not have the dice gods on his side this time. 1st failure with reserves compered to BT and then 2 scattering insidents with power armored troops. Now I can't wait that more turns come out.

The problem with the dice gods is that they are a fickle lot.

Just saying, why are you afraid of the Marshal? You strike before him and you have Force Weapons, so what's the big deal? Adamantine Mantles only prevent ID from double toughness- wounds.

I was not afraid of him when I was a full strength, and would have dived on him to get the secondary objective. I only ran away from him when I was down to 2 models and only one force weapon.

Oh, fair enough.

Congrats on the game Blackmoor. Very tightly contested until the very end.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of fixed-length games. I much prefer the normal random ending ones because you have to be much more tactical in these types of games. There's a variable that just can't be accounted for, and armies can't just hide and make a last minute dash for the objectives.

Congrats Blackmoor and excellent bat rap.

You've forced me to paint up more troops.

and maybe a Landraider for them.....

See you round 5 at the BSB ?

Blackmoor, your army list, do you have just a regular Dreadnought and 2 PsycoDreads? Why not dropped the regular dread and add it some more guys to the Strike Unit? Still a great batrep.