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20152015/06/17 08:32:58
Subject: [1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
So, I went to Terracon and I'd like to share some of what went on (I'm gonna split this up into multiple posts with all the guff in this one and the batreps to follow). For those of you who don't know, we were using "community comp" (which can be found here: http://www.communitycomp.org/ if you're interested) to "balance" the tournament entries. There was a bit of a thread on this a while back, and my views are well know there, so I will try not to rehash them too much here.
Final Score would be determined by a battle score out of 100 (5 games, each worth 20 points max) + 30 for sportsmanship (1 point each for bringing codices/templates/Dice, not slow playing intentionally and generally knowing the rules, along with a 0 - 3 scale for how much you enjoyed playing your opponent) + 20 for paint + 50 for comp for a total of 200 points.
Each mission (I'll post up a picture of our handouts) would consist of a fixed primary objective (worth up to a max of 6 vp) and layout along with 5 player selected secondaries (out of 12 options), each worth 1 vp. Final difference between players would be converted into a 20 - 5 max/min score for each player, with a tabling instantly counting as 11-0 (and converting to 20-5 battle points).
Paint was judged by an impartial (or, as impartial as you can get in an environment such as this) observer, with a 3 colour minimum required for entry.
Comp was based on the community comp system, and is a bit too complicated to explain here. All you really need to know is the stronger stuff you take (and the more you spam), the less free points you get to compensate. My issues with this system are well documented elsewhere and I had a chance to play one of the community comp council and air my grievances with him directly. Many points made by myself and others were borne out when units everyone had marked as undercomped dominated the top tables.
I travelled from Cairns to Narracoorte for this event (roughly 6000 kms round trip, or about 3300 miles for those of you still stuck in the dark ages, closer to 7000kms if you count the way we actually went, rather than just as the crow flies), so this was not an inconsiderable expenditure in time, effort and cash (just so you've got the right frame of mind when I say if stuff was good or bad and if it was worth it).
I made the trip with my local store manager and we formed a team with some other awesome dudes from South Australia (the state where the event was held) and got some shirts made up and generally just hung out being cool and regaling each other with tales of how much we would/did crush our opponents by and ate food and drank beers while doing so. If any of the Team I Got This lads are on here, cheers to you fellas!
Spoiler:
Below is a selection of some of the armies that were present and on display;
Spoiler:
pics of the hall from table #1
My Sexy TSons & Tz Daemons army and their display board
My GK & Sentinals of Terra Opponent from Round #3
High placing Necron army
Ork army with converted knight and garage with working overhead crane and integrated speakers playing metal music, very cool, one of my favourites
Another high placing Necron army
Yet another high ranking Necron army
Some nice DE Yet more well placing Crons (seeing a theme here yet?)
What was one of very few primary Eldar armies
One of many SW armies
A very nice quartered marine army and one of my favourites
Very sexy old school DA Moar SW, this guy won best painted IIRC Alpha Legion, beautifully painted, not that you can see from my crappy pics
BA, IIRC, this guy got 2nd for paint
A High placing GK An Even moar old schoold Deathwing army
A kroot themed army that not only looked awesome in person, but apparently did pretty well in games too!
My store managers army, who managed to take out the players choice army award! Go Blake!
A very nice Slaneeshi themed army who also kicked arse and took names despite being built around a Masque!
One of 2 sisters primaries, and an example of the bare minimum done to get entry. Why you would do this to 40k models, especially sisters and a knight, I don't know.
Skittari and Guard, much nicer in person
A TSons & Orks player, I'd love to know how he went
DE Some nicely done BA, again, much nicer in person
Moar DE, with corpsethief Claw!
My Tyranid Opponent from Game #2, each unit is individually named
A nice chaos army ruined by too much flash
The other example of how not to do it, with a carboard cutout of a ghost ark and a plastic toy for a nightbringer. *sigh* Another gorgeous army my lack of skills fails to capture, this time Nurgle daemons
The youngest player there (13) witrh some fantastically painted 'Nids
1 of only 2 Tau players, again, the phone fails to capture the beauty of the army, the scheme is closer to warplock bronze in most lights and is quite striking
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/06/25 23:36:59
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/25 23:40:30
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
12 comp. After spotting Shadowsun and an EPCA riptide in the same list with no other HQ, something seemed off, and after asking my opponent, alledgedly he was in contact with the tournament organisers and it was agreed that Farsight is just an extension of the Empire book, and you can simply take FE units and wargear on Empire units, so apparently the Crisis were troops and he could take the EPCA. Seemed like bull**** to me, but whatever, no point arguing about it now when we were already late setting up. The Aussie 40k masters FAQ has all kinds of frelled up rulings in it (like units being able to cast the same psychic power multiple times) and I only checked what was relevant to my army since I never play using it otherwise.
Not sure why 1 unit of 10 pathies instead of 2x5, why not some target locks on the fusion crisis or why the shield drones and markers without controllers (except for shadowsun of course). Given the restrictions of SMS in community comp, taking it on the devilfish was also just shooting himself in the foot, but whatever. I'd also wager that the single broadside gave up 1st blood far more often than he'd have liked in his later games too. Still, he was a great dude to play, very friendly and I enjoyed the game immensly.
Mission, Deployment, Objectives, Warlords, Powers
Spoiler:
Mission [spoiler]
Secondaries
Spoiler:
As you can see, there are some that are much more specific (and difficult) than others. To be honest, I should have picked up hold an objective every turn, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm obviously not going to kill the riptide unless I get lucky, and trying to rely on it would be foolish, though selecting 1st blood was probably a mistake.
Spoiler:
Table
Warlord & Powers
Spoiler:
Shadowsuns trait is set, so he basically just gets to watch me roll dice for 5 minutes
Warlord gets Night Attacker Master of Ambush. Yes!
Sorceror gets Doombolt, Perfect Timing and Foreboding Prescience. Nice.
Aspiring Sorceror #1 gets Doombolt
Aspiring Sorceror #2 gets Breath of Chaos
Book Herald gets Cursed Earth (Yay!) and Infernal Gaze Summoning. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Grimoure
Portal Herald gets Cursed Earth (double Yay!) and Incursion (triple Yay!). Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Portalglyph
Horrors Roll Tzeentch and get Firestorm. Oh well, they can't all be winners.
Deployment He wins the roll for table edge
We deploy objectives as per rules, with me putting mine in a central position to try and force him to clump up and the other as far away from where I think he will deploy to encourage splitting up his army, or else make poor use of the ruins in his side of the table.
He wins the roll to go 1st and chooses to go 1st. I'm OK with this, as even though I'm against Tau, I generally like to deploy in response rather than set the tone since I've got a slow, low range army, and deployment is critical for me to control the battle locations.
He spreads his stuff out, with the main anchor being on the left (my left that is) held by the riptide and pathies with Longstrike and the lone broadside deployng right, tempting me to counterdeploy his main line and give him side armour to shoot.
I respond by putting the vindies to have front armour vs both his anti tank units while the rhinos and screamerstar shore up my left in the ruins and the centre near my objective while the forgefiend camps a ruin for a 4+ cover and a chance to make longstrike jink and be useless all game.
He declares shadowsun and melta friends are DS'ing, I declare the 'Drake in reserve 'cause he has to.
My infiltrators (both TSon units and their rhinos plus the Sorceror who joined the 8 man squad and the horrors) went second after his stealth suits, leaving me without a great place to put my stuff, and again, in hindsight, deploying the horrors there was probably a mistake.
I fail to Sieze and away we go!
Turn 1
Spoiler:
Tau He shuffles his stealth suits into fusion range of the horrors and burst cannon range of the screamers while long strike shimmies around to try and stay out of range. The plasma crisis move up to get into range since I've deployed slightly back from the line.
Longstrike immediately goes for the closest vindy, but can only manage a glance. The pathies go after the horrors, lighting them up with 5 tokens, the broadside goes after the horrors, as does the 'fish, and the stealths, though he forgets to declare all targets. I remind him he really should declare primary and secondary, but let him have it and he wipes out the horrors for 1st Blood!, which is one of his selected secondary objectives.
The crisis manage to roll poorly against the screamers and I jink the 2 that wound. Poor target priority on my opponents behalf there not to go after the screamers before they can get the grimoure off.
The riptide puts a glance on a rhino with the 3 shot IA.
TSons I shuffle the FF and both vindies make their terrain rolls while the rhinos speed up to claim the middle objective and get into position to dump my sorcerors unit next turn out so I can start casting. The screamer position for a 1" charge through cover against the stealth suits. I pass my grimoure and drop the portalglyph in a ruin, where it scatters straight into terrain and stops. The vindies go after the devilfish, leaving the forgefiend to deal with longstrike and make him jink.
I get cursed earth off on the herald as well as incursion, summoning 3x bloodcrushers (they're too expensive to pay points for, but they're incredible when you get them for free, always my 1st choice when I get incursion) and due to Cursed earth, they don't scatter and come down 1.01" away from the crisis suits. I drop a couple of drones from the plasma crisis team with doombolts.
The forgefiend daemonforges and forces Longstrike to jink, allowing hom to dodge a glance and a pen. The 1st Vindy scatters off but the second hits and explodes the middle devilfish, taking 6 pathfinders with it due to wounding 11/12, though I forget to make them take a pinning check. The TSons put a dent in some stealth suits. The crushers take the opportunity to run 1" and spread out a bit for the coming ****storm of fire.
Screamers charge the Stealth Suits, just making it in with a 5" charge, brutalising them before they get to attack since Str 5 AP2 is awesome. I forget my hammer of wrath attacks though. I consolidate towards the remaining devilfish.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
Tau
Shadowsun comes in in my DZ with her mates, aiming for my vindicators. I'm fine with this plan, though her lack of grace in rolling a direct hit and not scattering off the board irks me slightly.
The demeched firewarriors go camp his middle objective while the others get out to try and gun down my screamers and protect the remaining devilfish. The crisis moves back a bit to try and get out of range and longstrike moves to get side armour. The riptide jumps over to get an angle on the crushers.
The 'Tide attempts to feed the crushers pie, but the +1 invo from cursed earth means he's out of luck, as both the pie and the fusion bounce off. Rapid fire Plasma crisis, the devilfish and rapid firing firewarriors all with markerlight support manage to kill a ingle screamer despite a 2++ with a re-roll. The broadside deciedes to be clever and drop the middle rhino, but thankfully I manage a pair of cover saves from the HYMP's and the SMS can't seal the deal, leaving the rhino on 1 hull point.
Shadowsun and friends easily polish off the right Vindy, and put a crew stunned on the other (which gets ignored due to daemonic possession) but Longstrike misses the side armour on the remaining vindicator since he's snap shooting. Shadowsun then bugs out, though at least she heads towards the middle of my DZ where my TSons can intercept in their turn.
TSons The heldrake decides that I've got this (I swear, I'm going to call him charmander, 'cause he just does what he wants and never listens to my pleading for him to arrive when I need him) and stays lounging around in reserve.
The screamers set up for an unfailable multicharge on the remaining devilfish and the firewarriors foolishly trying to protect it while the crushers eye up the plasma crisis. The Sorceror jumps out of his rhino and the middle Rhino scoots out of range of the broadside and disgorges it's contents towards shadowsuns unit. The forgefiend shuffles towards the right objective again, intent on keeping longstrike jinking while the remaining vindy decides that the clumped up survivors of the devilfish explosion camped around the objective look too good to be true.
I get a single horror from the portalglyph and pass my grimoure roll again.
Psychic rolls around and now it's play time. Doombolts remove all but 2 pathfinders and I get ignores cover and prescience off on the sorcerors unit of TSons while cursed earth goes off from the herald again and I fail to summon a horror squad. The pathies fail morale and flee 9, not quite enough for them to get off the board.
Longstrike gets shaken, but jinks a glance and another pens from the 'fiend, I drop a handful of shadowsuns drones and a single crisis and put a wound on another with rapidfire AP3 bolters while the sorcerors unit strips away 6 firewarriors. The vindicator lands a direct hit on the demeched firewarriors. There are no survivors.
The screamers multicharge the devilfish and the firewarriors, taking a wound on a screamer for their trouble, but exploding the 'Fish and wiping out the warriors, though I forget my hammer of wrath again. The crushers bounce the riptides Str 7 due to cursed earth again and leave only a single Crisis on 1 wound, but he loses combat by 6, and desite rolling a 3, it's not enough and he's run down. The screamers consolidate towards the broadside and the crushers head towards the riptide.
Things are looking grim for the Tau.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Tau The 2 remaining pathies flee off the board. He moves shadowsun up to remove the remaining vindy and the riptide gets some distance from the crushers.
The vindy goes pop, the riptide overcharges and pops a crusher and the broadside bounces missiles off the screamers. Longstrike achieves nothing since he jinked again last turn.
The riptide jumps away, but not far enough, shadowsun jump away to the corner of the board behind the forgefiend with something like a 17" jump the rotten cow.
TSons The heldrake sees his chance for glory and comes on, gets intercepted by the broadside and riptide but decideds he won't worry about missiles and IA fire that same way he didn't worry about showing up last turn and shrugs them all off.
He sees shadowsun is at the back of the pack and remembers that she's only T3 and doesn't much like his Str 6 flamer and positions himself accordingly. The crushers ensure they won't fail a charge on the riptide, the forgefiend shows his back to longstrike and points himself towards the melta crisis unit and the screamers move 12" towards the broadside. The Tsons rhinos move towards objectives to ensure they're held and the TSons go after the riptide and shadowsuns friends since those are the only 2 units either will be able to reach for the rest of the game. I get another pair of horrors and then fail my grimoure. Crap.
I put prescience on the TSons, doombolt the riptide (failing to wound with 1 of 2) and don't worry about anything else since I've got this but time is running out since we started late.
I pew pew the riptide with the TSons, achieving nothing because Str 4 AP3 vs T6 2+/5++ is a thing I have to deal with. The drake roasts shadowsuns unit and she fails her 1st LOS roll and pops along with most of the unit. The forgefiend and the TSons combine to whittle the unit down to 1 suit and some drones.
The crushers charge the riptide and manage to lose combat by 1 (causing no wounds and taking 1), but pass morale and hold. The screamers man up and make a 9" charge onto the broadside, killing it before it strikes because Str 5 AP2 hitting on 3's (I forget my hammer of wrath again by the way) and consolidate towards longstrike while the forgefiend makes the charge on the remainder of the melta crisis team, pushes a wound through and wins combat, running them down since they can't hurt him, consolidating towards the right objective and facing longstrike again.
At this point, he's got a riptide locked in combat (and about to be charged by the sorceror and his TSons with force weapons) and longstrike about to be eaten by screamers the following turn while I control all objectives bar the right one that the forgefiend will get next turn and he conceedes. GG.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
Tau GG
TSons GG
Turn 5
Spoiler:
Tau GG
TSons GG
Turn 6
Spoiler:
Tau GG
TSons GG
Final Results, Conclusion & Thoughts
Spoiler:
Tabling (technically conceeded with 2 units left) at the bottom of Turn 3. Tabling translates to an immediate 11 - 0 victory, which converts to a 20 - 5 game.
Victory and Glory to the forces of the Thousand Sons and their Tzeentchian Daemon allies this day!
I think he made quite a few errors in this game that I was able to exploit quite well, mainly putting the suits too close to the screamers, and then not retreating the crisis suits away behind the firewarrior chaff so I coudln't charge him with the screamers or crushers, but it's easy to say in hindsight. I also got very lucky with my powers, grimoure rolls and playing Tau on Dawn of war rather than hammer and anvil since screamers are brutal against Tau.
Getting Longstrike to Jink early ensured he wouldn't be doing too much for most of the game and taking out the riptide via deployment and tying him up with the crushers meant there wasn't too much he could do to me, while I was actually fairly happy for shadowsun to come down and pop the vindies since they'd already done their job and meant she was locked down with her unit away from the action while the screamers rampaged through the Tau DZ.
Holy crap, I've won a game on table #1 with Thousand Sons at a major tournament! I went into this tournament saying I would be over the moon if I won a single game, hell, even if I just didn't get tabled in every single game and I've tabled Tau on the top table in my first game! Once more though, in hindsight, this probably hurt me more than it helped, since now I'm fighting the other people who tabled their opponents, whereas if I had gotten smashed early, I would have probably had some easier games. Oh well, mission achieved, I could lose every game from now on and still go home happy.
I should mention that my opponent would eventually finish second last, so winning this one isn't as impressive as I might have hoped. Still, a win's a win.
My teammates didn't fair as well, with only 1 other person winning their game.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/25 23:44:16
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/25 23:49:30
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
I hate playing against 'Nids with TSons, because while I can ignore your armour, I need 6's to wound and you get cover. I have only ever beaten 'Nids once, and I don't see it happening again any time soon. Not to mention that SitW is a pain for an army that relies so heavily on psychics to achieve anything, especially when comboed with their psychic dice to deny, and it goes downhill fast.
Mission, Deployment, Objectives, Warlords, Powers
Spoiler:
Mission [spoiler]
Secondaries
Spoiler:
Well, I've lost. I don't have anything that can stand up to the volume of fire he's got while holding objectives out in the open, and I've got nothing that can get into his area to actual threaten his units, because Str 4 just doesn't worry T6, even if it is AP3. I might have a chance at stealing some objectives if my TSons can make their 4++ and remain locked in combat forever (since they're fearless), and if things go well, maybe even do some damage with Force, but I'm not loving the odds, since he's got huge volumes of medium strength, crappy AP fire, the bane of my 23 point marines.
I might be able to pick up some points on secondaries, so I skip 1st blood, since my army isn't terribly killy out of the gate, lacks long range and he has boatloads of MC's and plenty of cover to hide in. I pick warlord as well, since I want to remove that flyrant, though I thought the FMC option was ALL MC's instead, so choose kill ObSec instead of the more obvious kill FMC's since my forgefiend doubles out warriors with no saves and rippers are rippers. I opt for psychers since I want to maintain psychic superiority and I grab linebreaker because heldrake and I pick last laugh because while I may not have good alpha strike potential, I generally tend to outlast my opponent and bring my forces to bear better later in the game.
Table
Spoiler:
Warlord & Powers
Spoiler:
He gets something ****ty off the tyranid table and re-rolls it back into the same thing.
Flyrant gets Psychic Scream, warp blast and Catalyst
Walkrant gets onslaught and catalyst plus the horror
Warlord gets MTC and Stealth (Ruins). Not terrible and I opt not to re-roll
Sorceror gets Doombolt, Scriers Gaze Prescience and Endurance. Could be worse.
Aspiring Sorceror #1 gets Breath of Chaos
Aspiring Sorceror #2 gets Doombolt
Book Herald gets Cursed Earth (Yay!) and Infernal Gaze. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Grimoure
Portal Herald gets Infernal Gaze and Dark Flame. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Portalglyph
Horrors Roll Maelific and get Infernal Gaze.
Deployment I win the roll for table edge and select the lower edge since it gives him less cover to hide in and better opportunities to shield the side armour of my Vindies.
We deploy objectives as per rules which doesn't allow for any choice in where they go.
He wins the roll to go 1st and chooses to go 1st. While it means he gets the alpha, that's fine, since I can't reliably hurt him that bad and it means I get the last chance to steal/contest objectives.
He spreads his stuff out, mostly on the line, with the biovores behind LOS blocking ruins and the mawloc behind the green ruin/building in the middle on the right. The lictors and rippers (and I'm sure something else that I can't think of right now) start in reserve.
I respond by putting the forgefiend in cover for a 3+ cover and the horrors get the other ruin for a 2+ cover, re-rolling 1's when they go to ground in response to any shooting at all. I use the screamers as a screen for my remaining vehicles which use the buildings to block los to their sire armour as best they can. Heldrake stays in reserve 'cause he has to. I place the screamers a touch back from the line to ensure he can't fire his 18" range weapons on his 1st turn.
I fail to Sieze and away we go!
Turn 1
Spoiler:
'Nids
Shootyfexes move up, hive tyrant wanders forward a bit, flyrant soars towards my lines and everything in the backfield shuffles around a bit. The mawloc burrows into reserve.
He gets Catalyst off both on the flyrant/exocrine (despite me chucking 17 dice at it and getting no 6's at all) and the tyrant/shootyfexes, then get scream off on the horrors, killing 2 because I pass my invos like a baws. Warp lance fails to go off.
The flyrant shoots the middle rhino, only causing a glance while all his blasts scatter off, either doing nothing or only clipping 1 guy who makes his save.
TSons
The screamers prep for a flyby on the flyrant after the portalglyph gets dropped off and I pass the grimoure check. I decide to be bold and disembark the TSons squad from their rhino so I can rapidfire the flyrant and try to bring him down and tie him up with the horrors for a turn. The vindies move into firing position and the far rhino heads up the board to threaten his backline and try and give the shootyfexes a hard choice.
He denies Cursed earth, despite me getting 4 successes on 5 dice, then I fail to get any of my other powers off as my dice betray me.
I achieve nothing with the screamer flyby due to Str 4, and the story is the same for the TSons, especially since they're hitting on 6's as well, though they do make the flyrant jink after helpfully reminding my opponent that their bolters are AP3. The Vindies achieve nothing more than putting a wound on the exocrine and the tyrant and failing to wound a carnifex. The warlords TSons fire out the hatch, managing to put a wound on one carnifex, as does the forgefiend.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
'Nids The lictors fail to show but the rippers turn up behind the forgefiend, scattering minimally.
Flyrant moves into glide, mawlock comes up under the horrors, but scatters 11" away onto a vindicator and achieves nothing, has another go and scatters 11" away towards my board edge and surfaces. Tyrant wanders out of LOS, exocrine continues to advance towards the right side vindicator while his backfield continues to shuffle around slightly. Shootyfexes lumber into a firing position in the ruins in the middle.
The flyrant gets shriek off (apparently I can't manage any 6's despite throwing 14 dice), causing 8 wounds to the horrors (who became Ld 4 due to SitW), but I pass 5/8 5++'s because that's how I roll and 5 horrors remain. The TSons are Ld 10 even while their sorcerous supervisor is reduced to Ld 7, so they're fine. He also puts FNP on himself and the Exocrine for the lulz while warp lance fails to go off again.
He makes up for the poor psychic effort against the TSons by pewpewing them with the shootyfexes, causing 14 wounds, of which I manage to fail 9, wiping the Squad and gaining 1st Blood! The flyrant tries to dakka the forgefiend, but fails miserably, only hitting with 6 shots and getting 1 glance which I pass because 3+ cover.
Again every single blast weapon goes wildly off target, causing no damage.
The 'Fex regains a wound from regen.
TSons The heldrake again decides I've got this, remaining in reserve like the stubborn bastard that he is. Probably something to do with my opponent reminding me I needed to roll reserves before moving stuff...:smallredface:
I spin the forgefiend around to face the rippers while the screamerstar moves up into the backfield, putting a wound on one of the zoeys with thier slashing attacks. The warlords rhino continues to make for the enemy DZ to try and force the shootyfexes to turn around and stop trying to break my battle line or allow me to rampage around in his own backfield. The vindies back up away from the oncoming threats, though it would appear that they're only delaying the inevitable. The rhino of the departed TSons pops smoke and prevents a mawloc charge on the forgefiend while prepping to block the carnifexes if they don't turn around.
The portalglyph remains quiet and I pass my grimoure roll again.
Psychic again sees nothing of note as he denies cursed earth and I again fail to achieve any damage with my remaining witchfires.
Shooting sees a wound on the lead carnifex from the vindy, while his partner puts another one on the exocrine with his snap firing combi bolter after failing to wound with the demolisher cannon! The TSons fire out the hatch at the carnifexes, achieveing nothing of note. The Forgefiend kills 2 of the rippers from shooting, then charges and kills the remaining ones and reforms to face the carnifexes again.
Things are looking rather bad for the Tzeentchian Forces at this point.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
'Nids The lictors are still hiding in reserve and can't be coaxed out.
The mawloc preps for a charge on the horrors, the carnifexes decide to double back and play defence on the TSons while the exocrine decides that the right vindicator is looking mighty tasty. The backfield continues to shuffle about to ensure everyone is within synapse but doesn't really move about that much.
Psychic and the 'Nids fail to get catalyst off on either tyrant as well as failing to get scream off on the horrors, but manage to push warp lance through on the rhino, since once again, I can't roll a single 6 on 12 dice. FML. As punishment for my inability to roll a 6, the rhino explodes and I lose 3 TSons in the explosion. Double FML.
The flyrant manages a glance on the Forgefiend who fails his 3+ cover as my dice's tale of betrayal continues. The same betrayal happens to my opponents scatter dice, once again scattering every single shot completely wide of the target. The Carnifii then dakka the TSons good and proper, thought this time I make 12/15 saves, but I'm down to only 1 Rubricae, the Aspiring sorceror and the Sorceror warlord standing around out in the open.
The carnifexes charge the remains of the TSons squad, killing the rubricae via impact hits, shrugging off the staff hits fromt he sorceror and killing the aspiring sorceror before he could use his force axe. I hold since I'm technically still part of a fearless unit until the end of the phase. The exocrine charges the vindicator on the right flank and explodes it for the lulz. The warriors charge the screamers and combat is a draw with minimal damage on either side. The mawloc charges the Horrors, but the unthinkable happens and they win combat by 1 (the same horror unit has beaten an archon and incubi retinue in combat previously) after making every save and managing to push a wound through. My opponent and I stare at each other in disbelief and call end of turn.
TSons The heldrake finally comes in, vector striking the flyrant, but failing to wound like a chump. The remaining rhino head flat out for the middle objective, hoping to secure it for the coming end of game or force the warriors to come into range of the vindicator (both are good options). I manage to fail my grimoure roll at a terrible time, and the portal continues to produce nothing but the chittering insanity of the warp denizens screaming incessantly at each other.
Do or die time, I put Force, Prescience and Endurance on the Sorceror who is now all on his own in combat with 2 carnifexes and they all go off and he can't manage to dispel any of them. I sneak cursed earth though on 1 dice after he spends all his dice against force and endurance.
The remaining vindy moves back and bolters away the stray spore mine lurking around, but choosing not to fire the cannon since i'd probably hit the portalglyph. The forgefiend dakkas the flyrant with daemon forge, pushing a pair of wounds through thanks to re-rolls.
The forgefiend then charge the flyrant, hoping to hold it up in combat and deny it the chance to contest my objective and combat is a stalemate. The carnifex vs sorceror showdown is a stalemate, as they can't break through my 3+ invo and I can't break through their armour saves (I've got a Force Staff). The screamers fail to achieve much, killing a warrior but losing 2 of their number in the process, but thanks to a low Ld roll, they stick around without too much fuss.
The Horrors stalemate the mawloc again in an incredible (and surprising) display of martial skill, with neither side landing a telling blow. The mawloc tries to hit and run out of combat, but fails with a 6, remaining locked in combat for another round!
Turn 4
Spoiler:
'Nids The lictors get tired of waiting and rock up on the middle objective.
The spore mine comes down to contest my objective while the exocrine heads towards the horror vs mawloc farce to provide some backup. The zoeys and tyrant shift back to provide supprt to the warriors by setting up a charge on the screamers now their defences are down.
The exocrine decides to shoot the rhino instead of helping the mawloc, damaging it just enough for the lictors to finish off with their flesh hooks. My opponents scatter dice continue to defy his will, ensuring nothing of import happens from their shooting. The complete lack of hits from scatter dice, even with a re-roll on the biovores, has gone beyond humerous and is now into farcical.
The farce continues, with the Horrors AGAIN beating the mawloc by passing the single save they had to and managing to swarm it sufficiently to put another wound through! Such a shame that it's fearless, or many, many lulz could've been had! The sorceror turns one carnifex into a giant husk with his force staff, but takes a wound in return for his trouble. "Aha! Str 9; your sorceror is dead!"
"Nope, eternal warrior from Endurance!"
"Damn!"
The screamers and heralds fall against the shear weight of attacks from the warriors, tyrant and zoeys and the last 2 screamers pop to combat res and the 'Nids consilidate back towards the middle objective.
The Hive tyrant returns to full wounds from Regen.
TSons I think I'm being clever and get 5 horrors from the portal and use them to surround the spore mine that's been hanging around the portallyph and then tank shock it with the vindicator, only to find out it simply explodes when in b2b with an enemy, though it achieves nothing of note. I almost manage to shut the flyrant out of contesting the objective, but can't quite manage to close the gap.
The 'drake can't achieve much, so decideds to go into hover on the objective to try and contest. After all, he's got AV12 and a 5++ and lictors are only str 6. I'm sure he'll survive 1 round of combat...
Still do or die time, I manage to get Force and Prescience off on the sorceror (he saved his dice for endurance, but since the sorceror only had 1 wound left and I can't take FNP against instant death attacks it didn't matter).
The drake flames the lictors for good measure, taking a wound off each.
Another stalemate between the Sorceror and the remaining Carnifex, with it failing to hit, and the sorceror failing to get past 3+ armour. Once more, the horrors stalemate the mawloc into a drawn combat, but they can't stop the 'loc from fleeing in search of easier prey, and he hit and runs out towards the newly sumoned horrors and the portal glyph.
The flyrant wrecks the forgefiend and consolidates onto the objective. Bugger.
Turn 5
Spoiler:
'Nids He moves everything that can towards the middle objective to ensure the heldrake goes down...
10 Minutes remain! ...and while he manages to live through all the shooting...
...He goes down hard against the lictors, since he's only AV10 on the rear (I keep forgetting he's not a walker despite the maulerfiend body and legs)
The flyrant gets side armour on the remaining vindy while maintaining 3" from the objective and just inside linebreaker range. Damn.
3 glances. Double Damn.
"Aha, 3 glances, it's dead!"
"5+ cover from intervening unit of horrors?"
*rolls* "He takes 2 hull points, 1 left!"
"Grrrr..."
I should mention here that my opponent had selected destroy all vehicles as one of his objectives, which I forgot about completely until he mentioned it after the game.
The Sorceror finally manages to get through the armour on the remaining 'Fex and withers it into a mouldering heap, consolidating towards his DZ
TSons
Quickly we finish up since there's not much movement left other than my sorceror securing linebreaker like a boss. I shuffle some horrors to ensure that the flyrant can't get out of the way of what's coming towards the objective and then...
"Tank shock from the Vindicator into your Flyrant"
"OK" *goes to move"
"Wait, I'll Death or Glory."
*Rolls a 1* "Well ... he's dead"
...
"Holy Crap":smallbiggrin:
"Holy Crap":smallmad:
That's Warlord and kill all FMC's and my objective is now uncontested and his linebreaker removed. Huge, Huge roll.
Turn 6
Spoiler:
'Nids Time's up!
TSons Time's up!
Final Results, Conclusion & Thoughts
Spoiler:
He has his objective (2 points), the middle objective (3 points), 1st Blood and ... something else for 7 points
I have my objective (2 points), Linbreaker, Warlord and Last Laugh for 5 points
Victory to the forces of the Tyranid Hive mind this day!
That score not only changed massively in the last turn, but doesn't reflect how utterly dominated I was throught the game. If not for the statistical impossibility of horrors holding the mawloc for 4 combat phases, and his terrible, atrocious luck with the scatter dice, I would have probably been tabled. Still, he played conseratively I think and needed to be far more agressive and I made the best of what I had. I feel that if he had've pushed a bit harder earlier, he could have easily broken my line and tabled me without too much effort around turn 4 or 5. Only now as I was writing turns 4 and 5 did I realise I should have made a right turn with my heldrake and kept it in zooming to block his warriors and then gone into hover on turn 5 and contested the middle objective to give me a 5-4 victory!Crap!
Either way, 3 memorable moments for me;
1) Sorceror killing a pair of carnifexes (Carnifii?) in CC 2) Horrors beating a mawloc in CCtwice 3) Splatting a Flyrant with a Vindicator tank shock (this is my favourite in-game memory of the entire tournament)
Losing an entire 9-man squad of TSons to a pair of shootyfex's by failing 9 out of 14 3+ armour saves certainly stands out as a momorable moment in all the wrong ways however.
This opponent had the unfortunate distinction of being rather memorable for his constant screaming of "DICKBUTT!" at the top of his lungs for any critical rolls. While not exactly offputting, it did eventually get annoying, but other than that, he was a fun dude to play against.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/25 23:50:07
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/26 00:05:14
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
Chaos Daemon Allies
125 - Herald of Tzeentch, Disk, ML2, Exalted Reward
125 - Herald of Tzeentch, Disk, ML2, Exalted Reward
99 - 11x Horrors of Tzeentch
150 - 6x Screamers of Tzeentch
1850, 7 comp, 11 + d6 warp charge
0 is the softest list, 20 is the strongest list allowed.
vs
GK / SoT
Spoiler:
Gah, GK cent star cheese. There's no way that this should be 7 comp if mine is also 7. I tell my opponent such and he replies that he is part of the "comp council" and they had many complaints that the nemesis strike force was undercomped, and as such, he was testing it out to see if the complaints were valid. hmmm... Regardless, his entire army bar the scouts have a 2+ save, while I have only the pair of vindicators that can touch his army, not to mention a dreadknight, who is all the things my army can't deal with wrapped in 1 package; T6 monsterous creature, 2+ armour, incredibly fast, strong combat, decent shooting. Awesome.
Mission, Deployment, Objectives, Warlords, Powers
Spoiler:
Mission
[spoiler]
Secondaries
Spoiler:
I selected Linebreaker (because heldrake), Last Laugh (because I've generally got the staying power), Warlord (because I'm hoping to double him out with the vindies), kill the key units (because there's only 1 unit of ObSec scouts and I have a heldrake) and kill Monsterous Creatures (because he's only got 1 and there's nothing else for me to pick)
Hmmm, he's got virtually no obsec, but he can DS, gate or infiltrate his entire army. If I can control the midfield (something thousand sons do rather well usually), I might be able to pull out a win here based on VP if I can managed to get enough secondaries.
Table
Spoiler:
Totally forgot to grab a pic before the start, so you'll just have to look at the pics below and imagine, but it's basically a flat board with some burned out buildings scattered around evenly throughout the board.
Warlord & Powers
Spoiler:
Librarian gets pinning, and re-rolls into pinning. Good luck with that since everything in my army is fearless, a vehicle or automatically passes their checks.
GK Libby gets all bar sanctuary. Interesting.
Sentinals of Terra libby gets nothing of note
Std GK units get std GK powers
Warlord gets Night Fight Night Fight. Crap.
Sorceror gets Doombolt, Precog and Misfortune. I almost swap out misfortune seeing as he's GK and will easily deny it, but I reconsider since I've got nothing else and maybe I can sneak some of his dice out beforehand.
Aspiring Sorceror #1 gets Breath of Chaos. Hmmm, AP2 flamer, could be worse
Aspiring Sorceror #2 gets Breathe of Chaos. Hmmm, AP2 flamer again, could be worse
Book Herald gets Dark Flame and Infernal Gaze Summoning. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Grimoure
Portal Herald gets Cursed Earth (yay) and Possession. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Portalglyph
Horrors Roll Maelific and get Possession. Nice.
Deployment He wins the roll for table edge and selects the right edge.
We deploy objectives as per rules which doesn't allow for any choice in where it goes.
I win the roll to go 1st and chose to go 1st. I want to try and dictate the flow of the game and get into midfield early. as well as minimise his choice for DSing near my stuff.
I deploy reasonably forward but still reasonably protected if he siezes. The screamers go up the front to move & turbo boost over to take out his servo skulls so he scatters the full distance while the front rhino prepares to move 12" and pop smoke on the objective and get an early lead. Vindies to either side to ensure Draigo can't tank all the wounds if he gets close and the forgefiend in the ruins to have a decent field of fire without being too threatened.
He deploys the DK in ruins up the back and the cent star on the line in his DZ, the big GK termie blob stays in reserve and the scouts infiltrate up onto the building the objective is near.
He manages to sieze the initiative! Well crap.
Turn 1
Spoiler:
GK / SoT
The termies come down on the objective thanks to the servo skulls allowing them to only scatter a little bit, the cents waddle up and the dreadknight shunts forward.
He gets cleansing flame off, wrecking the forward rhino for 1st blood, and taking only 2 casualties from the horrors because I was rolling 5++'s like a champ, and I manage to deny vortex. He gets hammerhand off on the termies and force on the dreadknight since I've got no dice left. My opponent declares that this is the first time he's had to worry about someone actually denying his powers, especially vortex.
He runs to spread out his termies and then shooting takes out half the screamers and the herald with the grimoure, along with a weapon destroyed on the top vindicator (the demolisher cannon and not the combi bolter, naturally) and he manages to immobilise the bottom vindy with the centurions.
TSons
That's pretty much game there, since I don't have the mobility to go very far and the GK thoroughly control the objective and I can't assault them with any hope of winning. My only hope now is to get misfortune off and weight of fire the termies away and slam the screamers into the cents with a 4++ and tie them up as long as possible.
The top vindy moves away from the DK, the demeched TSons shuffle around a bit to get into rapid fire range while the warlord and friends jump out of their rhino which moved forward and prepare to lay waste to the silver marines after the sorcerors have worked their space magic. The portal herald drops the portal off which scatters straight inti the building and stops while the screamers move up to prep a charge on the centurions.
Cursed earth goes off on the screamers, precog fails to go off on the sorceror, misfortune gets denied and I perils, but roll a 5 and pass Ld, doombolt gets denied. Crap.
The bottom vindicator is still in range of the demolisher cannon, and he takes out 3 termies. The rest of the army pours every last ouce of fire into the terminators for a total casualty count of ... 0. Yeah, that's how this is going to go down. I remember that the vindy with the destroyed cannon still has a combi bolter, and he manages to drop a termintor because Tzeentch appreciates irony.
I could opt for a 12" charge on the cents with the screamers, but it's not going to happen, so I slash attack the termies, but can't get through their armour with the pitiful 4 attacks that I roll.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
GK / SoT Nothing much of note happens movement-wise
I deny gate, he gets vortex off on the demeched TSons and I can't roll 8 5+'s. He kills a couple, but also tags the warlord sorceror in th other squad. I fail LoS on a 1, and then fail my 3++ with another 1. Get out of here sorceror, nobody likes you. Cleansing flame goes off again and I roll faily well, losing 1 horror and 1 TSon, but the damage is done and I now have no way to hurt anything in his army that matters.
Shooting removes a few more TSons and the remaining screamers and herald. I consider conceding since it's the last game for the day and I'm tired, but still think I can salvage a couple of points from this debacle, so continue to play.
TSons The heldrake finally realises **** just got real yo and comes on, aiming for the centre.
The TSons move away from the vortex as best they can, a lone horror pops out of the portalglyph and the rhino moves up to block LOS to the portalglyph.
Breath of chaos is denied despite 5 successes 5 dice. Fine, I guess I'll throw 4 dice at possession on the horrors since I've got nothing else to do and I don't care if I lose one, but it goes off and he's got no dice left, so I get a lord of change (my daemon prince is doing a counts as as my LoC model, while present in my summoning case, is not even base coated).
Shooting achieves nothing as the remaining demolisher cannon scatters off into no mans land and 2+ armour is a pretty good defence against a small number of AP3 bolters. The forgefiend takes a wound off the DK, but it's too little too late at this point. The heldrake roasts a pair of scouts and they fail morale and flee. The portalglyph horror and the LOC run upfield.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
GK / SoT
The terminators move towards the rhino and the centurions move in to take out the immobilised vindy while the dreadknight pulls back for reasons I can't figure out.
The TSons lose all but 1 guy to shooting and the immobilised vindy gets popped by the grav cents.
The termies declare a multi charge against the lone TSon and the remaining rhino. He asks if I want to just remove them but I tell him to roll it out, that TSon has totally got this. I make his attack and he saves in on his armour and then rolls the daemonhammer attacks, and the TSon saves every single one of them on his 4++. He resorts to rolling the remaining attacks against the TSon with the forces he declared that were charging him and the TSons still lives after the smoke has settled! He finalised draigos attacks against the rhino and it explodes, but can't enact vengance against anyone, then declares that the remainder of the squad who charged trhe rhino will consolidate agsint the lone TSon.
I'm a bit miffed since I though that since he declared against the rhino, that's where his attacks had to go and if his target was destroyed, then tough luck, but he maintains that he can consolidate into the remaing combat since he multi charged. The game is well beyond saving so I say whatever, but still think that's not right. His remaining attacks finally drop the TSon on his last save, ruining the christmas miracle. What jerks.
They consolidate towards the portal glyph.
TSons Heldrake goes into hover on the objective to both gain a point and become a distraction from the daemon prince lord of change who is going to go get linebreaker and hide out of LOS to prevent a tabling. Said LOC does exactly that, and heads for his DZ while the portal glyph spawns 2 more horrors
The heldrake can't burn through 2+ armour, but again Tzeentch loves bending odds and the remaining vidy uses his combi bolter to down a terminator.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
GK / SoT The termies ensure they can't fail the charge on the portalglyph, while the grav cents and DK turn around to take care of the take care of the heldrake.
The termies kill the portal and the horrors and the grav cents and DK combine to remove the drake.
TSons The daemon princeLOC continue to head for linebreaker and takes the time to spin around and flickering fire the scouts off the board, picking me up another point from destroying all obsec units and runs behind the destroyed building to try and get out of LOS. The forgefiend fires ineffectually at the DK, but the vindy proves that combi bolters are the hotness, taking a wound off the DK.
Turn 5
Spoiler:
GK / SoT Draigo and the inquisitor ditch the grav cents for the termie blob who proceed to gate across (he throws 12 dice at it, I can't stop it) and buff the crap out themselves, including ignores cover from somewhere and the DP can't pass that many saves, while the grav vents and the DK remove the FF and I have no more models left.
TSons Game Over.
Turn 6
Spoiler:
GK / SoT Game Over.
TSons Game Over.
Final Results, Conclusion & Thoughts
Spoiler:
Tabled on Turn 5, which immediately converts to 11-0, which converts to a 20 - 5 score in battle points.
Victory and glory to the forces of the Imperium this day!
Well, that was a thing that happened. Everyone said that the Nemesis strike force was undercomped (along with wraiths, the decurion and thundercav), and generally speaking, GK and 'Crons wrecked face all tournament, with my opponent in this game finishing the tournament in 3rd place overall. Not really a fun game since pretty much everthing was set against me from the start, but what can you do. This highlights the flaws in the community comp system and I mentioned that to the guy, though I doubt it will be taken on board.
Still, he was a fun dude to play again, though others mentioned he was behaving poorly at the end of the tournament (though I guess that's a thing that happens when you're at the pointy end of the field).
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/26 00:09:20
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
This was one of my teammates, so I couldn't complain too loudly, but god damn do I hate playing 'Nids. And seriously, **** Hive Guard. 'Nid players who cry about a weak 'Dex can suck my force weapon. At least I should have control over the psychic phase since he's only got the flyrant and the zoeys.
Mission, Deployment, Objectives, Warlords, Powers
Spoiler:
Mission
[spoiler]
Kill points with a 0 for primary for the loser, so I'm pretty boned.
Secondaries
Spoiler:
I selected Linebreaker (because heldrake), Last Laugh (because I've generally got the staying power), Warlord (because heldrake/AP3 bolters and force weapons), Burn the witch (because I forgot about the zoeys and though that there was only 1 and it's the flyrant and I have a heldrake) and kill Flying Monsterous Creatures (because he's only got 1, it's the flyrant and I still have that heldrake)
Since I've got no chance at getting any primary points (the winner gets the difference between the 2, the losers get 0), might as well focus on secondaries and try to mitigate the slaughter. Now I just need to ensure I take down that flyrant...
Table
Spoiler:
Totally forgot to grab a pic before the start again, so you'll just have to look at the pics below and imagine, but it's basically a ruin in opposing corners with one in the middle and low hills/forrest scattered throughout. Terrible for deployment if you rely on being obscured.
Warlord & Powers
Spoiler:
His warlord gets something uninteresting and rolls the horror and ... Warp Lance I think?
Warlord gets Stealth (Ruins) and MTC. I opt not to re-roll.
Sorceror gets Doombolt, Perfect Timing and Precog. Oh my.
Aspiring Sorceror #1 gets Doombolt
Aspiring Sorceror #2 gets Breathe of Chaos.
Book Herald gets Incursion and Infernal Gaze. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Grimoure
Portal Herald gets Infernal Gaze and Dark Flame. Crap. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Portalglyph
Horrors Roll Maelific and get Infernal Gaze. Damn.
No cursed earth is bad. Infernal Gaze isn't terrible, since it's at least got fleshbane.
Deployment I wins the roll for table edge and selects the side with the best vantage point for me and the worst cluster for him, though there's not a huge amount of difference.
No objectives since it's kill points.
He wins the roll to go 1st and forces me to go 1st. Damn. Given that we're both short range armies, I was hoping to go 2nd since I won't be able to bring his flyrant down even if he starts him on the table. Oh well.
Forgefiend in the ruins for a 3+ cover, screamerstar the same to mitigate shooting, though Hive Guard will ruin my day if they deploy across from me before I get my grimoure up. Rhinos and Vindies spread out to maximise cover while maintaining enough coherency to converge on most points ont he board in 1 turn. Horrors in the middleish of the board in a forrest so they can gtg for a 4+ cover if they get shot at. Heldrake in reserve because he has to.
All his hive guard in the ruins, flyrant behind the ruin out of LOS, and the Monsterous creatures on the ground out of range of all my stuff with gaunts as a cover save. The warriors hide behind the MC's and gaunts.
He doesn't sieze the initiative and away we go.
Turn 1
Spoiler:
Tzeentch
I immediately grimoure the screamers to ensure they don't take wounds moving out of terrain. Shame I fail and reduce their invo to a 6++. *sigh* I decide to stay where I am and drop the portalglyph into the ruins, where it scatters something silly like 21", but since it immediately hits the ruins, it doesn't go anywhere.
The vindies move up to get a firing solution and the rhinos move up as well, with the middle rhino going flat out to ensure I can control the ruins in the middle if I get disembarked and claim a cover save otherwise from everyone else except the hive guard. The horrors slog through the forrest.
Psychic happens, but with everyone out of range and in transports, it's not terribly exciting with only tzeentch's firestorm able to be cast and it kills maybe 3 gaunts across 3 castings. My opponent did hold back all his dice and was dispointed to find out I wasn't going to cast anything else.
The vindies shoot, putting a couple of wounds on the hive guard units and killing a handful of gaunts along with putting a wound on an exocrine. The TSons fire out the top hatch, but do nothing more than remove a single gaunt between 4 of them due to half snap shooting and cover saves.
The forgefiend remains out of range and the horrors run through the forrest.
Kill count 0 : 0
'Nids
The flyrant goes into swooping and flies up the right side, and everything else shuffles around to maintain coherency and get a better angle on my stuff.
Psychic is a non event, with him throwing everything into warp lance and me throwing enough dice to stop it.
The Hive guard pop the Rhino for 1st Blood!, and the TSons and warlord jump out near the flyrant. The flyrant gets side armour on the right vindicator and pops it. The exocrines can see the middle rhino and apparently I can't roll cover saves, so it pops as well and the other TSons squad jumps into the ruins as best they can.
Kill count 0 : 3
Turn 2
Spoiler:
Tzeentch The heldrake isn't impressed with our slide towards the bottom tables and decides to show up early, positioning to vector strike the flyrant!
I immediately grimoure the screamers to ensure they don't take wounds moving out of terrain. Shame I fail again and reduce their invo to a 6++. *sigh* I guess they'll stay where they are and wait to charge the contents of the drop pod.
The Forgefiend decides that nothing will tempt the 'nids to wander into his range and starts his slow slog across the board while the horrors continue to slog through the forrest. The TSons move to secure their position in the middle ruin while the other squad surrounds the flyrant in case I ground him (forgetting that not only could I not charge him since I got disembarked, but that he can opt to simply start flying again if he survives the firestorm).
The remaining vindicator hovers on the edge of usefulness, keen to help, but not keen on exposing himself to hive guard fire and wary of letting the flyrant get side armour.
The portalglyph summons a pair of horrors who apparently know ... dark flame. FFS.
I roll the vector strike on the flyrant and roll a 1 for the number of hits and fail to wound with a 2. Crap.
Psychic phase sees tzeentch's firestorm continue to be useless, killing a single gaunt, and since I want some back up and to try and actually put pressure on him to move, I summon a trio of 'crushers with incursion, who scatter towards his DZ harmlessly and I put perfect timing on the TSons squad surrounding the flyrant and force on both TSons squads just in case.
Shooting sees a warrior obliterated by the vindicators demolisher cannon scattering off an exocrine while the TSons can't manage to stick a wound on the flyrant because, as if we needed another demonstration, Str 4 vs T6 just doesn't work. The heldrake, ashamed at his miserable failure to do anything to the flyrant and afraid of retaliation, zooms off the board and into ongoing reserves. The horrors and summoned 'Crushers run towards his DZ.
Kill count 0 : 3
'Nids His pod comes in, disgorging a batch of zoeys.
The flyrant heads over to the other TSons squad, leaving my warlord out in the cold. Not too much movement other than some shuffling to maintain coherency from gaunts and jostling for position from the hive guard who are disppointed that they don't have a heldrake to shoot.
Psychic sees him throw everything into warp lance from the zoeys into the vindy, and he perils and loses a wound. I can't stop it going through, but I make the 5+ cover so all is well.
Shooting sees him wreck the vindy with his flyrant while the hive guard and exocrine gently caress the Warlords TSons squad down to 1 guy, the aspiring sorc and the warlord, with them only surviving because they were out of range.
Kill count 0 : 4
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Tzeentch The heldrake comes back on, and decides he's not going to bugger it up this time, declaring daemonforge and vector striking the flyrant again, with my opponent helpfully noting that I can't zoom off the board this time.
The Sorceror decides that his courageous plan of charging the 'Nid lines and force weaponing his way to glory is not the most prudent and decides to take cover behind the wrecked rhino and vindicator.
I grimoure the screamerstar, ready for their moment of glory, but again, I fail miserably and they're stuck with a 6++. I decide to move them out and attack the zoeys anyway as I don't care anymore at this point. The forgefiend, 'crushers and horrors continue on their overland hike through the forrests.
The TSons in the ruin prep for a charge on the flyrant who is sure to be grounded this time.
I roll 3 hits for the heldrake vector strike, but only wound with 1, but daemon forge comes to the rescue, letting me wound with all 3 due to a re-roll. Suck it Flyrant, you're going down! He fails his grounding check, but I fail to wound him! He lives!
Psychic phase sees me cast breath of chaos at the flyrant, but despite being a poisoned AP2 flamer, I can't remove that last wound. I put precog on the warlord in case he manages to find an angle where he can shoot him and then put a doombolt through the pod and some zoeys. I bust out incursion again and drop 3 flamers down to roast the zoeys and the pod. He has basically given up trying to stop me doing anything at this point since I'm rolling like a daemon and he can't deny anything.
The forgefiend daemonforges and puts a pair of wounds into an exocrine, but fails his daemon forge roll and takes a hull point. The flamers put a wound on the pod and 1 on the zoeys and I slashing attack the zoeys as well since I don't like my odds of a 9" charge. The Warlord and the remaining lackeys also put a wound on the pod from shooting.
The TSons in the ruins drop the flyrant with their bolters, so I don't even get to charge :( That does net me Warlord, kill FMC's and Kill Psychers though, so it's a good kill.
The 'crushers and horrors continue to run towards his DZ through the forrest.
Kill count 1 : 4
'Nids He moves the far right exocrine up to try and go after my warlord, but can't see. The zoeys prep for a charge on the screamers.
Psychic comes and goes without anything since I have enough dice to deny his warp lance.
Hive guard into the heldrake. He gets a pen and 2 glances but only the pen sticks and while it's a crew stunned, the heldrake ignores on a 2+ so he just loses a single hull point. He pours everything bar the hiveguard into the TSons squad in the middle ruin, but 3+ armour, 3+ cover (stealth:ruins from the warlrod trait) and a 4+ invo means they're not going anywhere and I don't lose a single model.
The zoeys make the charge on the screamers and the neurothrope issues a challenge! I accept with my portalglyph herald for the lulz. I manage to roll like a baws, taking only a single unsaved wound out of 4 and putting one on his neurothrope and 3 on the zoeys.
Kill count 1 : 4
Turn 4
Spoiler:
Tzeentch I grimoure the screamers, but to no-ones surprise, I fail again. This has stopped being funny.
The heldrake flies off the board, vector striking one of the hive guard for the lulz, killing him. The warlord moves towards the squad in the ruins, but ensuring that he remains out of LOS behind the vindicator and 25" away from the nearest enemy model other than the pod. The flamers move to ensure that they can fire on the pod without clipping the screamers in combat and the horrors and crushers continue their trak through the forrests.
Psychic sees me put precog on the warlord and doombolt the pod along with a Str 2 Tzeentch's firestorm into the remaining clustered 'Nids, harming nothing.
The 2 TSons squads combine fire with the flamers into the pod to remove it while the horrors and 'crushers, you guessed it, continue to run.
The screamers finish off the zoeys apart from the neurothrope who is still locked in mortal combat with the portalglyph herald.
Kill count 2 : 4
'Nids
No real movement other than some shuffling by the exocrines to get LOS.
Psychic is a non event.
The hive guard dump their str 8 into the 'crushers, killing them while 2 exocrines can juuuuuust see the remaining bodyguards of the warlord and kill them both, leaving the sorceror on his own and the last exocrine manages to kill off the forgefiend with some lucky rolling.
The screamers fail to finish off the neurothrope, but the portal herald can fight his own battles and drops neurothrope and they consolidate towards the far corner.
Kill count 3 : 7
Turn 5
Spoiler:
Tzeentch The 'Drake comes back on and flies down the left side edge, I move the flamers away, the TSons hold the middle and the warlord continues to stay put out of LOS and out of range. The horrors consolidate their position near my opponents board edge.
Kill count 3 : 7
'Nids He puts everything into the TSons in the middle but can't even scratch their paintwork.
Kill count 3 : 7
Game continues.
Turn 6
Spoiler:
Tzeentch Technically we just figured it was pretty much game over, since I wan't going to move out of linebreaker with anything and he wasn't in range to kill anything other than the TSons and he didn't have enough shots to kill them. so we pretty much called it and went to lunch.
'Nids Game Over.
Final Results, Conclusion & Thoughts
Spoiler:
He has 7 kill points (2x Vindicators, 2x Rhinos, 1x TSons Squad, 1x Forgefiend, 1x Bloodcrushers) to my 3 (1x Hive Tyrant, 1x Tyrannocyte, 1x Zoanthrope squad), so he gets 4 points and I get none.
I have all 5 of my secondaries (Warlord, Kill FMC's, Kill Psychers, Linebreaker and Last Laugh) for a total of 5
He has 2 secondaries (1st Blood and Kill vehicles [fliers are their own category and don't count]) for a total of 6
Victory and glory to the Hive Mind this day!
I hate 'Nids so much. Still, managed to get all 5 points from secondaries and forced a close game, so that's something I guess. If I was at the pointy end of the fied, I would have just sat back in my DZ and castled up, waited for his pod to come down and try not to give up 1st blood, then kill that and the zoeys, shuffle back into my Corner and wait until T5 to zoom over and grab line breaker for the win since I had the only unit with a range greater than 24" (The 36" range on the hades autocannons on the forgefiend) and he would have had to come to me to get anything done. But then that's a super boring game, and I was playing a team mate and didn't really see the point in travelling 7000 kms to watch nothing happen for 4 turns and then turbo boost my screamers across the board.
I now know why my local blackshirt (who was also part of our team at this event) is so afraid of the heldrakes vector strike, though given his first chance, I think my position of it not being that bad is also valid. Good to see the 3 credits out of 7 that I spent on the heldrake finally be worth it, even if it did take 2 tries.
Almost salvaged a win, but threw it away with some silly play like putting the forgefiend into range of the exocrines and summoning those crushers and letting them get wiped out as a distraction (mainly due to forgetting about them getting instant deathed by the hive guard. Still, it was a good game and my opponent was pretty rad and we both had fun, so top marks.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/26 00:09:42
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/26 00:13:18
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
Chaos Daemon Allies
125 - Herald of Tzeentch, Disk, ML2, Exalted Reward
125 - Herald of Tzeentch, Disk, ML2, Exalted Reward
99 - 11x Horrors of Tzeentch
150 - 6x Screamers of Tzeentch
1850, 7 comp, 11 + d6 warp charge
0 is the softest list, 20 is the strongest list allowed.
vs
Daemons/Eldar
Spoiler:
Herald of Tzeentch, ML2, disk, grimoure
Herald of Slaneesh, Steed, ML1, Exalted locus of beguilement
Herald of Khorne, Jugger, Lesser reward (Axe)
Herald of Nurgle, Palanquin (Warlord)
10x Bloodletters, Banner, Icon
20 (?)x Daemonettes
10x Horrors
10x Plaguebearers
12 (?) x Seekers
Seeker Chariot
Skull Cannon
Burning Chariot
Soul Grinder, Mark of Nugle, Phlegm cannon
Farseer on Jetbike
3x Windriders + 1x Warlock, 3x Scatterlasers
Fire Prism
Comp 7.
There was a moment of confusion where a BA player put his stuff down and we exchanged lists, but 'twas a misreading of his table, and I was actually vs the above list. To say I was thoroughly disapointed would be an understatement since not only was my list aimed at beating marines, I hate the idea of stupid CtA crap like this. Having said that, If the eldar hadn't have been there, I would have praised his list for being a nice mix of all 4 gods and an interesting army to face. I'm not sure that the additon of the Eldar was the best move from a list strength point of view either, a fact borne out by his presence on the bottom tables with me.
Just from my initial glance at his army, I wasn't really seeing any way I could manage a win since there was no way I could stop all his CC units from closing the distance and then I would be screwed.
Mission, Deployment, Objectives, Warlords, Powers
Spoiler:
Mission
[spoiler]
Secondaries
Spoiler:
In hindsight, I really should have selected hold 1 objective each turn, but I guess that's an easy call when you don't have 30 seconds to pick the things you want to aim for for the next 2 hours. Oh well.
Table
Spoiler:
Totally forgot to grab a pic before the start again, so you'll just have to look at the pics below and imagine, but it's basically a ruined building at each end and some LOS blocking terrain like hills scattered throughout.
Warlord & Powers
Spoiler:
His warlord gets re-roll instability tests and re-rolls back into the same thing while informing me that he would have much prefered re-roll warp storm. Yeah buddy, wouldn't we all, it's one of the reasons that fateweaver is so very good.
Farseer and co get everything bar the psychic apocolypse and the +1/-1 armour power
Slaneeshi herald gets shriek
Tzeentch herald gets ... foreboding and screiers and trades 1 for prescience I think.
Warlord gets 3 pinning checks 3 Pinning checks. Against Daemons (who automatically pass), vehicles and Jetbikes (who can't be pinned). Awesome.
Sorceror gets Breath of Chaos, Foreboding Prescience and Warp Speed
Aspiring Sorceror #1 gets Breath of Chaos
Aspiring Sorceror #2 gets Doombolt
Book Herald gets Sacrifice and Incursion. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Grimoure
Portal Herald gets Infernal Gaze Summoning and Possession. Doesn't roll a 1 on exalted, so gets the Portalglyph
Horrors Roll Maelific and get Incursion.
No cursed earth is bad, but with daemons as the majority of my opponents force, I'm not sure it ALL bad.
Deployment I wins the roll for table edge and the side with the big building and as much open ground in front of me as possible to try and ensure I have clear fire lanes for when I'm about to get charged and force him to go slow through or around terrain.
Objectives are set up as per mission, with me going 1st and placing 1 in the big building ruin, he places 1 out in the open in his backfield for some reason, I place one over in the open ground near the forrest, he places one under the bridge looking terrain peice, I place one on the far hill so as to ensure that no-one can hide behind the hill on his side while still claiming the objective but I can hide behind it while still being within 3" and he places the final one at the end of the terrain bridge.
He wins the roll to go 1st and goes 1st, which is fine by me since he would've been out of range and I get the last chance to contest anyway. It means I'll only get 1 round of shooting in before he can charge, but I think that would've been the case anyway since I have virtually no shooting past 24".
I actually remembered to take a picture of deployment, so here you go;
His burning chariot is in DS reserve.
The vindies are on the hill due to clear LOS and to be able to force charges through terrain while troubling his seekers and vehicles. The FF is virtually unassailable in the top floor and can pour fire into vehicles while claiming an objective. The horrors are in ruins to gtg for 3+ cover and claim objectives while bubble wrapping the FF from charges. The screamers are protected in case something crazy happens and to counter charge if required. The TSons are camping objectives and to encourage the bad guys to go after them since the worst he can do is assault and destry the rhinos, ensuring that I get at least 1 round of rapidfire bolters before getting charged.
I don't bother trying to sieze initiative and away we go.
Turn 1
Spoiler:
Daemons/Eldar
He grimoures the seekers successfully, the jetbikes move up to flank the top rhino, the seekers run forwards as do the bloodletters and daemonettes. The soul grinder shuffles forwards a bit but is blocked in by other forces. The slaneeshi chariot and skull cannon both move forward a bit, but are generally blocked in by the seekers.
Psychic sees the farseer perils on fortune and ignore with a ghosthelm. I stop conceal and he gets guide through and something else that doesn't matter
Shooting sees him roll up the slaneeshi power off the warp storm table and manages to hit none of his units and 4 of mine, but nothing manages to do any damage because my invulnerable saves are running hot.
The foot troops all run forwards, the soul grinder scatters off the board and the skull cannon can't do anything to the vindies. The fire prism however pens the vindy closest to it and destroys the Demolisher cannon (damn you combi bolter, take the hit!). The scatbikes only manage 2 pens and a glance on the top rhino due to some terrible rolling and I save both pens from the 5+ cover for being obscured by the hill! Everything's coming up Tzeentch!
Tzeentch
The forgefiend uncovers his objective and finds it to be a stealth field generator! I love 3+ cover. The portal herald drops it like it's hot and while it scatters something like 15 inches back towards him, it hits the ruin immediately and stops. The grimoure herald successfully controls himself and gets the grimoure off on the screamers, who then move up 12" towards the seekers.
The bricked vindy moves up to block LOS to the other vindy, who shuffles back to juuuust keep the seekers in range. The top rhino moves up to try and draw the jetbikes in closer to be charged and locked by the horrors and the TSons and warlord get out to not only further encourage the jetbikes into the trap but to bolter the crap out of the daemonettes. The Forgefiend shuffles to point at the seeker chariot since the skull cannon is 0.2"'s out of range.
Psychic sees force and prescience onto the warlords TSons and warp speed onto the warlord (yeah khorne herald, charge me, lets see how you like 6 attacks hitting on 4's with a re-roll, wounding on 2's with instant death at initiative 7? Bring it!). I decide that some counter charge next turn would be handy, so I throw the remaining dice at incursion and he can't stop it. I perils and lose a wound on the grinoure herald but it goes off. The 'crushers aim to come down between the vindies and the seekers, but scatter 11" onto the rhino, mishap and roll a 1, giving away 1st blood! Doh!
Shooting from the prescienced TSons squad removes most of the daemonettes while the vindicator manages to scatter into even more seekers, killing 4/6 despite a 3++. The forgefiend puts a pen on the slaneeshi chariot, popping it due to open topped! The explosion takes out 2 seekers! and a daemonette. Shame I just gave away 1st blood with that mishap! The screamers slash attack the seekers, taking out 2 more seekers! but putting themselves in the middle of all his assault units. Oh well, better to sacrifice them now and redirect the charge. The bricked vindy pops smoke to try and help it survive and block LOS for another turn.
(Some of the daemonettes are under the terrain bridge thingy)
Turn 2
Spoiler:
Daemons/Eldar The Burning chariot comes in, aiming for the spot in front of the TSons, but lands on them, and rolls a 2 and I place it over near the wave serpent, away from anything it can hurt for at least 3 turns. My opponent seems very displeased with this, but I'm not sure what else he wanted me to do with it.
The herald pops the grimoure on the seekers again but can't control himself and they go down to a 6++. Oh dear. He immediately wishes he'd used the grimoure on my screamers to knock them down to a 4++ and I agree that that's what I would've done. The soul grinder moves onto the bridge to be able to charge the screamers, the seekers prep for a charge on the screamers and the skull cannon moves up a bit. The daemonettes and bloodletters both move to get a charge on the screamers as well. This isn't going to be fun.
The jetbikes don't take the bait and spread out a bit on the edge of the board and are going after the TSons out in the open.
The psychic phase sees the farseer (who perils himself and again ignores it with ghosthelm) and warlock buff the crap out of his squad and I let him have it so I can stop the psychic scream from the Slaneeshi herald and prescience onto the soul grinder from his Tzeentch herald. My Daemons are best Daemons!
Shooting sees the warp storm cough up a double 2, the worst result on the entire table. Every model with the Daemon special rule on the table gets -1 to their invulnerable save. Yep, I bet your warlord would've like master of unreality right now. His face sinks as he realises his seekers now don't have any save at all. The skull cannon fires at the vindies, but scatters hard and just clips the bottom rhino, shaking it. The grinder goes after the screamers, and I lose 2 to instant death. The prism goes after the TSons, but Tzeentch blesses his favoured and I bounce everything off my 4++. The farseer commands his minions to obliterate the TSons with their mighty scatter lasers, but despite 10 wounds, my tzeentchian dice are favoured by their patron god and only 1 goes through. Suck it fart-seer!
He assaults the screamers with the daemonettes and fails a 6" charge, even with fleet. He charges the screamers with the soul grinder and fails a 7" charge. He charges the screamers with the bloodletters and fails an 8" charge even with the banner (6+d6 charge range) and finally manages a 2" charge on the screamers with the seekers. His herald challenges out the grimoure guy and puts 3 wounds on him. I save 2, but it's not enough due to the perils from the previous turn and he's dead. The seekers taken down a single screamer, but all die and 1 wound onto the slaneshi herald in return who then pops to combat res (just, he rolled a 3).
Tzeentch The heldrake sees his chance and comes in early, eager for more praise, lining up a big mob of daemonettes
The Screamers move forward to try and pop the skull cannon, the Warlords TSons shuffle up to get into rapid fire range and their rhino moves to block LOS from the jetbikes, the vindies move up to get some targets and the bottom rhino moves up to support them. The forgefiend moves to face the jetbikes. The portal glyph generates 5 horrors who know possession.
Psychic sees a repeat of the warlord buffing him and his unit with everything he has. I throw the remaining dice at possession on the portal herald and get denied! What is this madness! Damn you farseer with your re-rolls!
The forgefiend wastes his shooting against the jetbikes, but makes them jink, so it's a pretty good trade. The vindy explodes the skull cannon, the Warlord and the TSons wipe out the bloodletters and herald via shooting and the screamers try and kill the opposing grimoure herald via slashing attacks, but don't have enough memebers reamaining. The heldrake roasts the big clump of daemonettes, killing all bar 2 of them.
Huge turnaround from where we were at the start of the turn, all thanks to the warp storm. This right here is why you take fateweaver.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Daemons/Eldar
Jetbikes move to the back of my board to get linebreaker and the remains of the deamonettes cower under the bridge. The soul grinder moves forwards and the horrors shuffle around. The burning chariot continues to fluff around in his back line. He buffs the horror squad with the grimoure.
Psychic sees the farseer buffs his squad up again (and perils for a 3rd time, and ignores the wound for a 3rd time with ghosthelm) and I can't seem to deny anything despite throwing massive amounts of dice at conceal.
Warp storm comes and goes with nothing of note. Shooting from the grinder removes the remaining screamers and the jetbikes pot shot at the horrors who go to ground for a 2+ cover with a re-roll (they're controlling the +1 cover objective this turn) and don't lose anyone. The prism goes after the Warlords TSons again, but once again, Tzeentch protects against eldar shenanigans and I don't lose anyone.
The forgefiend fell down when the table was bumped, so he's sitting there despite actually being on top of the ruin. The heldrake fell off the table and came apart, so his bits are simply sitting on my display board and his base is on the table.
Tzeentch
The heldrake moves over to roast some plague bearers and vector strike the grimoure herald who I fail to wound.
The Warlords TSons jump back into their rhino and move to intercept the jetbikes next turn while the other TSons jam their rhino into the forrest and pile out to keep the daemons holed up in their DZ and finish off the remaining daemonettes. The vindies move towards the grinder, the forgefiend livots to face the grinder and the portalglyph creates another 2 horrors.
Psychic sees me go for possession on the horrors only to have it denied again. God damn farseer, stop that! I also doombolt the remaining daemonettes out of existance.
Shooting the horrors with the TSons doesn't achieve much since they're out of rapid fire range and a 3++ re-rolling 1's is pretty durable. The vindy can only manage a glance on the grinder and the forgefiend put a glance on the grinder as well, but it's saved. The eldar are forced to jink again due to AP3 bolters but I don't hit with anything out the top hatch anyway, so it doesn't matter. The heldrake fails to achieve much against the plague bearers, killing only 3-4 models.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
Daemons/Eldar Grinder turns to shoot the 'Drake in the arse while moving towards his middle objective, jetbikes huddle in the corner, horrors move up to cap the objective under the bridge. He grimoures the horrors successfully again.
The farseer buffs the unit once more, and once again, perils and ignores the wound from the ghosthelm. Despite throwing all my dice at conceal, I can't stop it as I don't roll a single 6 on 19 dice.
Warp storm sees mighty Tzeentch, greatest of gods visit the battlefield and deliver swift justice to the nurglites while merely waving a favoured tentacle at my forces. 2 Plague bearers are obliterating by his warping gaze. Shooting from the jetbikes is ineffective against the rhino since they jinked last turn but it does remove a hull point via a single glance. The grinder puts all 3 harvester cannon shots into the heldrake thanks to prescience, manages 2 pens and a glance. While I stop 1 pen and the glance, the pen that goes through immobilises it and he crashes and burns, not even having the grace to fall on something. The prism goes after the other TSon unit that disembarked, but again Mighty Tzeentch protects his faithful followers and I lose a single Rubric.
Tzeentch The top rhino decides that since the eldar have got a good jink save up and a re-roll, I'm probably not goint to be able to kill them, so I head back to the objective and disembark the Warlord and his unit so they can charge next turn if the jetbikes try to boost onto the objective. The other unit of TSons spread out and move towards the horrors to try and take another objective while their rhino gets out of the forrest in preperation for a move to take the other middle table objective if my vindicators can't destroy the grinder.
The horrors from the portal glyph head for my middle objective since he can't take it and it doen't matter if they don't have obsec.
Psychic sees the warlord buff up again, but he manages to perils himself and take a wound. Wish I had a ghosthelm to just ignore that sort of thing. *pout*
Shooting keeps bouncing bullets off the horrors and the forgefiend daemonforges against the grinder and puts a pair of pens and a pair of glances on him, but he shakes off all but 1 glance! He loses a hull point from failing his daemonforge roll, but gets it back straight away with IWND. The vindy scatters off the grinder and doesn't hit anything. The top rhino pops smoke since he's got nothing to shoot.
Turn 5
Spoiler:
Daemons/Eldar The horrors move up to keep a hold of their objective, the grinder moves to secure the middle objective, the jetbikes move up towards my middle objective.
Psychic sees the farseer buff the squad again, once more perilsing and ignoring the wound via ghost helm. That's bullcrap. I manage to stop fortune this time and guide fails to go off.
The warp is calm. Shooting sees the jetbikes fail to get past the warlord rhinos cover saves (Praise Tzeentch!),
10 minutes remain!
the prism finally kills a pair of rubrics and the grinder pings a hull point off the vindy but then fails the charge
Tzeentch The warlords unit moves to ensure they're within 3" of the objective, the middle TSons keep moving against the horrors, the vindies bubble wrap the rhino on the bottom middle objective.
Psychic sees me throw warp speed on the warlord and use the aspiring sorceror to activate force. I decide not to risk peril by using prescience since the chance of him charging me is minimal.
I shoot the horrors off the objective and fail an 11" charge with the middle TSons.
That should be it since we're pretty much out of time, but my opponent rolls to see if it continues and starts taking his turn 6 before I can say anything, and then insists that we've got time for 1 more turn. *sigh*
Game continues.
Turn 6
Spoiler:
Daemons/Eldar
He moves the horrors into a circle around the objective and then re-grimoures them successfully, all but ensuring I can't shoot him off. The jetbikes move onto my middle objective while the farseer breaks off to go get linebreaker.
The farseer buffs himself and I deny everything bar fortune.
Shooting can't achieve anything from anyone (including khorne who paid a visit to the battlefield but wasn't really paying that much attention), but the grinder does make the charge on a vindicator and destroys it.
Tzeentch I re-wrap the rhino with the remaining vindy and terrain just incase there's a turn 7 somehow. I prep for a charge on the bikes and turn the forgefiend to target the farseer. The horrors secure their hold on the objective.
I decide against prescience on the forgefiend since I've got this even without denying him linebreaker and I might need the sorceror to crush the jetbikes. I do throw warp speed on him though. The aspiring sorc casts breath of chaos and takes out the warlock.
The middle TSons kill 4 horrors and then fail a 5" charge, just missing out on contesting the middle objective by less than 1/2 an inch. The warlord and his unit charge the remaining bikers and obliterate them for no casualties. The forgefiend gets 3 wounds through on the farseer, but all are saved, so no instant death unfortunately.
GG, game does not continue, do not pass go, do not collect $200
Final Results, Conclusion & Thoughts
Spoiler:
I hold all 3 of my objectives for 1 point each and 1 of his (my rhino has obsec since it's a troop choice) for 5 points. I have Last Laugh for destroying the jetbikes for a total of 6.
He holds 2 of his objectives for 1 point each for 2 points. He has 1st blood and hold 1 objective each turn for a total of 4.
Final result is a 6-4.
Victory and glory to the Tzeentchian forces this day!
That game turned around very, very quickly due to warpstorm on turn 2 where it went from an almost certain loss to a likely win all due to a 4. I felt a little bad about it, but then, that's the risk you take with daemons, and it was nice to bookend the tournament with wins. Would possibly have been a different story if he had've used the grimoure on my screamers instead of gambling on his seekers, but that's how it goes. Some pretty incredible rolling on the TSons unit certainly helped.
I made a few mistakes here and there, but overall, fairly happy with how I played that game. Losing the heldrake was a bit of a blow as I had counted on it getting me linebreaker, something to ponder on when I get so used to it being virtually indestructible.
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/26 00:16:23
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
Here's my closing thoughts on my 1st sizeable 40k tournament, spoilered for length;
Results, Ramblings & Review
Spoiler:
42nd out of 84, Juuuuuuust sneaking into the top 50% with 145/200.
59/100 for battle points : Fairly happy with this overall. 1st game I tabled a Tau player and played reasonably well. 2nd game I had a mild loss to 'Nids, but salvaged a huge amount of points on the last turn by killing his flyrant with my tank shocking vindicator. 3rd game I got tabled against draigo and cent star in a match I was never going to win. 4th game resulted in a close loss against another 'Nid player but kept to my game plan and got all secondaries, almost snatching a win but for some silly choices. Last game was a win, though I had that handed to me by the opponents warp storm table and still almost managed to throw it away.
Overall, I played a bit better than I usually do and focused on the missions reasonably well, though I often forgot about the secondaries and made some poor choices about which secondaries to take in virtually all my games.
29/30 for sportsmanship : A little disappointed I didn't get full points here, not sure why I lost a point, or who from to be honest.
16/20 for painting: Super happy with this! I've put a reasonable amount of effort into this army and while I've got a huge amount of room to improve, it's nice to see I can rank decently close with some fantastic painters. I'm totally stoked that it all came together well, even if I was painting the morning of the tournament, and had to put in an uninterupted 38 hour paint session the 2 days before I left to get it all finished.
41/50 for comp: Comp is what it is. I still think that the system needs a thorough rework and that many things are still poorly balanced, but that's something I accepted when I signed up, knowing that those were the rules they were going to use.
Unit Review
CAD - Crimson Slaughter
Spoiler:
Fear for all units was worthless. Apart from the Tau, every single unit that I got into combat with was fearless, so it never came up, and the tau units never got to hit me back bar a single crisis suit (who missed anyway), and that was against some summoned bloodcrushers.
The inability to take VotLW also doesn't apply, 'cause cult troops come with it as standard, though I never played marines and the +1 Ld only came into play once when the flyrant in game 2 shrieked a unit of TSons (who are Ld 10 even if the sorceror drops to Ld 7 due to SitW).
Overall, only taken for access to the Balestar.
D
175 - Sorceror, ML3, Balestar, Sigil, Mark of Tzeentch
Spoiler:
Unlocks TSons as troops, provides buffs, has a 3++, is overcosted unless he rolls great powers, is then merely passable. Some memorable moments in doombolting 8/10 pathfinders to death and making the other 2 flee in game 1, soloing a pair of carnifexes in CC in game 2, getting vortexed off the table turn 2 without achieving anything game 3 after failing his LoS and his 3++, surviving by hiding behind a wrecked tank game 4 and providing good support and board control in game 5.
Amazingly, between him and the aspiring sorcerors, I didn't roll Boon of Mutation (the 1 or 2 result) a single time despite rolling on Tzeentch 15 times! That's some kind of miracle there. Apparently Tzeentch knew I was at a tournament and granted me his favour, as rolling doombolt as often as I did was a huge help. Interestingly, my teammate and local blackshirt tried to convince me that Breath of Chaos was a fantastic power while I maintained it was trash. I agreed to use it at every opportunity in every game, and the final tally was ... a single eldar warlock on jetbike on the last turn of game 5 while multiple times it either failed to cast or did no wounds. Total trash for warp charge 2, would be great for WC1 though.
Overall, he did OK, but not great. Needed to roll perfect timing more, but generally did his job. Spell familiar/balestar is definately worth the 1 comp point.
Provided bodyguard for the Warlord and hope he gets perfect timing for AP3 ignores cover. Very rarely did the AP3 or 4++ come into effect, though the fearless was handy multiple times. The lack of use from the AP3 was largely due to who I played, though the one time it was relevant (Tau Crisis suits), it worked very, very well. Rhinos were invaluable, never consider leaving home without them, best 35 points you will spend.
Overall, did a passable job, but the same could have been done far, far cheaper by normal CSM with an Icon of vengance and a plasma gun/s. Would've hurt less when I lost the whole unit to a single round of twin linked devourer fire.
C
170 - Heldrake, Baleflamer
Spoiler:
Temperamental bastard. The threat alone makes him valuable, and usually delivers when he arrives. Killed shadowsun and a bunch of crisis in game 1, made an excellent distraction, but failed to wound a swooping flyrant in game #2, made a decent distraction in game 3 (though that was a lost cause regardless), vector striked a flyrant out of the sky and took 3 wounds off him along with drawing a boatload of firepower from the hive guard in game 4 and game 5 roasted a bunch of daemonettes then crashed to an immobilised from a soul grinders harvester cannon.
Results suggest he had a poor showing, but he draws attention like nothing else in the army, so he does his job (when he turns up). Almost certainly not worth 3 comp though.
C+
175 - Forgefiend, Hades Autocannons
Spoiler:
Didn't roll terribly well to hit, but didn't have any 0-8 shockers like usual. No standouts other than popping a chariot in game 5 and forcing longstrike to jink in game 1. This was probably his poorest set of outings I can remember.
Exploded virtually everything they shot at, drew a bunch of fire and generally looked menacing. The combi bolters never managed to take a hit for the demolisher cannons on weapon destroyed results though :( They have their weaknesses, and I didn't play them very well, but I really, really liked them and they did really well for me, even if their intended targets (thundercav and wraiths) never featured in my games.
Neither one rolled a 1 on the exalted table for extra rewards which was a bit poor. The grimoure had a shocker of a run, with 5 successes and 8 failures, despite working on a 3+! The portal however had a stellar run, generating a unit over half the time and only got destryed in game 3 where I was tabled, otherwise it never even got shot at. Even with my lousy success rate, the grimoure was still worth the 2 comp points I paid. I should have forgone the 2nd mastery lelvel on the portal heral in favour of another screamer, but that's easy to say in hindsight when yuo know you're not going to roll cursed earth often enough.
Powers were hit and miss. I rolled everything on Maelific every game looking for cursed earth, but only got it 4 times out of 20 rolls whereas Infernal gaze poped up 7 times. Grrr...
Overall, they generally did what they needed to do. When they worked, they worked brilliantly though.
B
99 - 11x Horrors of Tzeentch
Spoiler:
Sat back and claimed objectives, turned into a lord of change in game 3, beat a mawloc in combat twice and held it to a draw twice in game 2. Took an entire tau armies turn 1 shooting in game 1, provided warp charge in all games and got line breaker in game 4. Did brilliantly for under 100 points.
B
150 - 6x Screamers of Tzeentch
Spoiler:
Superstars, did a lot of the heavy lifting most games, drew a bunch of fire every game and still kept punching down to the last minute. Definate MVP's, even with the grimoure screwing them over more often than not.
Overall, did exactly what was asked of them, and then some.
A
Armywise, I would have been happy to have won a single game, I'm absolutely ecstatic to have won 2 and finished in the top half. I learnt a bunch about my army and the armies that I played against and had an awesome time with a bunch of awesome people. I still think the comp system they use is heavily flawed, but I had such a great time, I will probably go again next year if my work roster allows it.
Teammates
Spoiler:
My local GW blackshirt was one of the guys on our team and we travelled down together from Cairns and he managed to take out the Players choice for painted armies, so I guess I owe him a fair bit of credit for my paint score since he has helped me improve my painting so much over the years. He also managed to finish 18th out of 84 with his daemonkin army, so mad props to him! Doubly so since he was aiming for top 20 and achieved it.
We also had a space wolf player running heavy thundercav (like every other SW player) who finished 21st, a Sisters/GK/Imperial Knight player who came 29th, a 'Nid player (and my round 4 opponent) who came 44th, a skitari/2x Imperial knights player who came 53rd and our Sentinals of TerribleTerra marine player who came in at 78th.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/06/26 00:17:40
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2015/06/26 02:27:19
Subject: [1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
Nice reports it's good to see reports from something that is a non standard tournament list. That was a tough game against the GK and Cents, really tough for you to do anything particularly with seizing the initiative.
interesting idea on the secondaries, how did that work out? seems like it could have taken a lot of time for people to choose their 5 secondaries from the list.
Is this community comp very common in Australia? i ask because you don't seem to be a fan of the system and you travelled a very long way without fully believing in the comp system.
2015/06/29 09:51:21
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
I'm having a hard time seeing a bunch of the photos of the armies in the first post - even going to the direct photobucket url doesn't help - the pictures just look like a tiny row of the image, then blank.
Not done reading yet, but vs Tyranids game 2, why do the Mastery Level 2 Tyrants have 3 powers each (not counting Primaris: Dominate (+6" to synapse range)? Was it a tourney rule that you could swap your Primaris for something?
Galef wrote: If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
2015/06/30 00:02:09
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
I'm glad to see your list had some success. I've actually been wanting to do a similar list, but with Slaanesh. Playtests...haven't gone well. Perhaps CSM will get a little better with the next book. We can dream.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm glad to see your list had some success. I've actually been wanting to do a similar list, but with Slaanesh. Playtests...haven't gone well. Perhaps CSM will get a little better with the next book. We can dream.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/30 00:09:32
2015/07/03 20:14:48
Subject: Re:[1850] Taking Thousand Sons to a tournament - Terracon 2015
hivefleethannibal wrote: Nice reports it's good to see reports from something that is a non standard tournament list. That was a tough game against the GK and Cents, really tough for you to do anything particularly with seizing the initiative.
interesting idea on the secondaries, how did that work out? seems like it could have taken a lot of time for people to choose their 5 secondaries from the list.
Is this community comp very common in Australia? i ask because you don't seem to be a fan of the system and you travelled a very long way without fully believing in the comp system.
Yeah, not much went my way that game.
Depends on who you talk to about community comp and it's popularity. In some areas, it's apparently the biggest thing since the Emperor, in other areas, it's never been heard of. Some think it's the best thing ever, others think it's all pretty naff.
I went because;
- it was a good excuse for a road trip with some cool people
- I got to go play new people and new lists as well as learning a bunch and improving my skills
- I got the chance to take Thousand Sons to a tournament and not get instantly obliterated
- I wanted to test the comp system and see if my initial thoughts about it were accurate (they were)
- I wanted to see how well my gaming stacked up against some quality players (the one game against a hugh ranking player was that GK list, so, not so well)
Not really, since I have never run him. I've got the model, but he's still unassembled. I've never thought that paying a land raider in points for someone who can be doubled out by a krak missile was an overly smart choice, not to mention the lack of Div or a spell familiar-like ability on him. I've been meaning to give him a go for a while now since all I ever hear is how great he is, but other projects always seem to take priority.
Not sure what's going on with the pics, will investigate.
Edit; Pics appears to be fixed now.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/04 00:32:03
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
