So what made me decide to bring the list that I brought? It' not a balanced list and it isn't great in the Maelstrom Secondary objectives. Why did I decide to go with a more extreme build rather than a more Take-All-Comer's Tyranid army? There are a number of reasons for this.
More Offense: Rather than go with support units, I decided to go with more pure offense. With Space Marines, Eldar and a lot of the current builds, the meta has shifted back to MSU, especially in the ITC format. You need to be able to kill a lot of units in 1 turn. Flyrants are great for this. However, lictors and the malanthrope are less suited to deal with these types of armies, especially when they are going up against ObSec MSU. Thus, I wanted almost every unit in the army able to contribute to the Tyranid War Machine.
Ignore Cover Offense: Not only did I want more offense, but I wanted more offense with the ability to ignore cover. Ravenwing, Shrouded armies like Nurgle or other Tyranids and deathstars are all but impossible to kill by conventional Tyranid offense. Against such army builds, you need the ability to ignore their cover. Hence, why I am running more mawlocs. Not only do they provide offense, but they are also the only unit in the codex that provides AP2 offense that ignores cover (not counting psychic powers).
Anti-meta: The units that I expect to see a lot of - MSU Space Marines a la the Battle Company, Eldar Scatterbikes, White Scars/Ravenwing bikers and any infantry-heavy army - my list will excel in dealing with. My army also deals with enemy flyers very well (other than the units listed below). On the other hand, with the Denial nature of my army, a lot of armies will have trouble against my army. There are a few problematic builds, but overall, I think my list makes for a very good anti-meta list.
Denial Strategy: This list is designed to deny the opponent any real or good targets. Flyrants will be in the air against most armies and will be reserved against hard-hitting alpha-strike armies. Mawlocs will be in Reserves. Basically, the only units for my opponents to kill initially are units that don't count for any type of victory conditions. Basically, I want my opponent to waste his resources on my non-important units, while I am guaranteed to almost always get the alpha-strike against my opponent instead.
Null Deployment: Against very dangerous alpha-strike armies - drop pods, teleporting centurions, Eldar scatterbikes, Tau, etc. - my list actually has decent Null Deployment resiliency. Against such lists where I am forced to reserve my flyrants, I can actually survive most alpha-strikes. 5 mucolids will give me 2+ cover in ruins. Then I've got spore mines that I can easily hide out of Line-of-Sight from most units. That actually makes for a very sturdy base to ensure that I don't get tabled before Turn 2 when my reserves come in. Best of all, it's only 90-pts of units so that you can reserve 1760-pts of your army. And if I should feel the need to ensure my survival, I could sacrifice a mawloc by deploying him to draw fire away from my mucolids/spores. Worst case scenario, I'd rather lose 1 mawloc than maybe a couple of flyrants if I am going up against a strong alpha-strike army who is going first.
Better Resiliency: Lictors and the Malanthrope can be killed by assault or cover-ignoring shooting. And while mawlocs are just as vulnerable to assault or shooting, being a T6 monstrous creature with 6 wounds, they can be a lot more resilient as well, especially in cover or when buffed by Catalyst. They also have a slight advantage over other Tyranid units in that they can escape prey (i.e. dangerous assault units) by burrowing into the ground or use Hit-&-Run to get out of tarpit situations (although lictors can also hit-&-run out of combat, they are also much less likely to survive than mawlocs to hit-&-run out of combat).
Now all of this offense comes with certain drawbacks as well. I am fully aware of my drawbacks and will have to overcome them with strategy and hopefully, a little luck:
Weak with Maelstrom Objectives: Due to the lack of scoring or ground units, it will be hard for me to grab Maelstrom objectives that are not of the kill-a-unit variety. Other than hoping I roll those kill objectives, I am just going to have to blast my opponent's units off of their Maelstrom objectives. Against armies that are too good in Maelstrom objectives (Battle Company Space Marines, fast Eldar, summoned Daemons, Decurion Necrons), I may just concede the Secondary and try to win via the Primary mission and Tertiary bonus points.
No Ability to Control Reserves: I just didn't have the points to bring in a fortification to help with my reserves, at least not without giving up on some of my offense. Other than getting the right Strategic Warlord trait, I just need to roll at least average on my Reserve rolls. If I can do that, then it won't be so bad.
Problems against Flyers and Super-Tough Units: Units like the wraithknight and even riptides will give my list problems. I just can't kill them efficiently enough. Also, AV12 flyers (stormravens, fire raptors) or flying monstrous creatures with Shroud (Be'lakor, Nurgle princes) will give me problems as well. These units take up a lot of my shooting and my mawlocs cannot affect them. In most cases, my strategy will be to just ignore these units unless I have no better targets.
Weak Ground Game: Armies with a super-resilient ground force will give my army problems. The Green Tide, the Seer Council, Daemon-summoning armies, Battle Company Space Marines, Decurion Necrons, mobile deathstar armies, multiple Astra Militarum blob-squads - all of these armies have the potential to give my army problems, especially if they have the resiliency to survive my shooting and mawlocs.
No I didn't. I played against 5 Imperial Knights, scatterbike Eldar, Battle Company, Daemonkin and PJ's Daemons. Would have loved to play against iNcontrol's War Convocation or the French Overlord's Drop Pod Skitarii, but that didn't happen this time.
Ok, now for some eye candy, the army pics.
If you recognize any of the armies here, feel free to give them a shout-out.
CHAOS:
Spoiler:
Daemonkin out in full force. They were probably the most common of the Chaos armies.
Peter Kelley's of the Mercykillers and his Daemons. Peter is currently the top-ranked Daemon player in the ITC.
My Game #5 opponent - Daemonkin.
ELDAR/DARK ELDAR:
Spoiler:
The Seer Council and scatterbikes.
More scatterbikes!
Here's a nasty list by Julio, currently #2 on the ITC rankings: Eldar + centurions + Daemon summoning.
Brett "Tomb King" Perkins and his Eldau army (Eldar + Tau Firebase Cadre). Brett was playing against Pajamapants for the top spot in the end but just barely lost. Overall, Brett finished the tournament in 7th place.
My Game #2 opponent. Man, could his army shoot!
IMPERIAL KNIGHTS/ADMECH:
Spoiler:
Geoff "iNcontrol" Robinson and his Cult Mechanicus/Skitarii/Imperial Knight War Convocation. Most of you know him as an awesome Tyranid player. This time, he brought admech and finished 5-0 and 2nd Best Overall at the BAO!
Ben of the Mercy Killers and his Imperial Knight army. Ben was my Game #1 opponent.
Imperial Knights with centurions and a Culexus....what a deadly combination!
More Knights and centurions.
Very nice Nurgle-themed Imperial Knight army from Alan of team nWo.
Very nicely done IK/Admech army by Shane from Apocalypse Gaming.
IMPERIALS:
Spoiler:
Battle Company (or perhaps Demi-Company) Space Marines. They were everywhere!
Sean "Abusepuppy" Morgan and his Battle Company Space Marines with Eldar allies. Sean was my Game #3 opponent.
The dreaded Centstar!
Blood Angels spotted!
John's Ravenwing Dark Angels. John was the Best Dark Angels player last year in the ITC. He also finished the BAO as the Best Dark Angels player once again.
Space Wolves!
Bill and his Thunderwolves. Bill finished as the Best Space Wolf player.
Very nicely converted Grey Knights army.
NECRONS:
Spoiler:
Alex and his Necrons. Alex is currently the top ranked player in the ITC as well as the top ranked Necron player.
ORKS:
Spoiler:
Mike Fox and his awesomely converted/painted orks. Mike's orks won Best Painted.
TAU:
Spoiler:
Paul McKelvey's Tau. Paul was the Best Overall Player in the ITC last year as well as the Best Tau player. Currently, he is ranked #5 on ITC leaderboard.
Israel, a member of the Left Coast Corsairs (in this tournament) and painter for Frontline Gaming, is always at the very top in Best Painted/Appearance. This year, he lost out to Mike Fox for Best Painted, but Israel did win the award for Best Renaissance Man, which is awarded to the player with the most Battle Points + Painting Score combined. By the ways, not only is Israel an awesome modeler/painter, but he is a really good Tau general as well. Israel was one of 4 people to complete the tournament 5-0 and finished 3rd Overall.
Spam Adams of Team Zero Comp and his very nicely painted Tau. Adam was the Best Tau player at the BAO last year.
TYRANIDS:
Spoiler:
Hive Fleet Pandora!
John, the 2nd Top Tyranid player in the ITC currently, and his Skyblight Tyranids.
I appreciate the picture breakdown of armies you usually have from a tournament. This is one the best features anyone has ever done in a battle report.
DarthDiggler wrote: I appreciate the picture breakdown of armies you usually have from a tournament. This is one the best features anyone has ever done in a battle report.
Thanks guys.
I've always found it interesting to know who is running what armies, and I thought some of my readers might find it interesting as well. It also shows to a degree the trend that is the current meta, at least in the West Coast. I think that is fascinating as well. Glad you guys enjoyed it.
1. Hold Maelstrom Objective 1.
2. Hold Maelstrom Objective 2.
3. Have a scoring unit at least partially within the enemy deployment zone.
4. Destroy an Enemy Unit.
5. Destroy an Enemy Unit.
6. Have at least 3 of your and none of your opponent's scoring units in your deployment zone.
Tertiary Objectives: Big Game Hunter, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, 1-pt each
Deployment: Dawn of War
1st Turn: Imperial Knights
Note: We actually played the wrong mission, but the result was just the same nevertheless.
This is going to be a bad matchup for my opponent. Unless he gets a Skyfire objective, he really doesn't have anything that can deal with my flyrants. Meanwhile I can position my flyrants in his various flanks to reduce the effectiveness of his Ion Shields. Also, in the ITC format, for every 3 Hull Points you lose on a Super-heavy tank, the opponent gets +1 bonus Maelstrom point. Thus, right off the bat, I can get a potential +9 Maelstrom VP's just by taking out hull points from his knights (+10VP's would be moot because that would mean that I would have tabled my opponent). Knights are very good against other ground armies, but my army is the paper to his rock army. So never mind the Maelstrom objectives, I envision a potential tabling in this game and that is what I am going to play for.
Here is the dilemma. Ben has got 24 BS5 S6 AP3 shots plus 1 big-a$$ AP3 template weapon. If he shoots at my flyrants on the ground, he will statistically cause 5 unsaved wounds by the Gatling Cannons and 2-3W on separate flyrants with his flamer weapon. Thus, to deploy my flyrants is to lose at least 1, and so I decide to reserve them.
I deploy my spore mines at the opposite corner.
Psychic powers include a couple of Catalysts and Warp Blasts. Warlord Trait is nothing useful.
Turn 1 is uneventful. Knights move onto objectives and get the early lead on the Maelstrom Secondary by grabbing 2 of his objectives (scored at the end of the game turn, of course).
My opponent also gets lucky as one of his objectives is revealed to be the Skyfire Nexus.
Tyranid 1
Spoiler:
Everything remains the same. This is the quickest Turn 1 that I've ever had. Not even 1 sec. Yes, I think we're going to have plenty of time to relax after this game.
Knights 2
Spoiler:
Ben's Turn 2 is almost as fast. He adjusts the position of his Knights to grab another Maelstrom objective. His turn takes less than 1 minute. Should have brought a book to read with all the waiting I've had to do in this game.
Tyranid 2
Spoiler:
3 mawlocs come in this turn. All 3 hits the same Knight. I only cause 1 HP but with 6 S6 hits against AV12, that is statistically average. What isn't average, however, is that all 3 mishap back into reserves.
4 of my flyrants come in as well. Now you see him....
....now you don't.
Next!
I also get +2 Maelstrom VP's for killing the knight.
Knights 3
Spoiler:
Knights go in close to try to kill any flyrants that fall onto the ground.
Shooter on the Skyfire objective causes my flyrant to jink but only manages to put 1W on him (after 4+ cover and 5+ FNP from Catalyst). He stays in the air.
Ben does manage to grab another Maelstrom objective at the end of the game turn.
Tyranid 3
Spoiler:
I go after 2 potential targets. The last flyrant comes in as well and one of the mawlocs scatter off of a Knight (the other mawlocs go back in reserves after doing nothing).
Another Knight bites the dust. I also put 3W onto one of his Gatling Knights.
+3 Maelstrom points for me for doing 9 HP's of damage. At this point, I am ahead on Maelstrom and don't relinquish the lead on the Secondary.
Knights 4
Spoiler:
Knights move behind my flyrants. Ben makes a mistake and moves his shooty Knight off of the Skyfire objective, but I let him move it back within range in his Shooting Phase.
Acheron goes after my other mawloc.
Shooting causes 1 of my flyrants to jink. He might have put 1-2W on it as well.
We then go to assault.
The knight only hits 1 time but then rolls a on the Destroyer table to take him out.
The Acheron also charges my other mawloc, hits 4 times, then rolls a , , and to take him out as well!
Well that was unlucky for me.
Tyranid 4
Spoiler:
Mawloc comes in and scatters off of a Knight.
One of my flyrants go into Gliding mode. One of my flyrants fly off the table.
Another knight bites the dust.
Knights 5
Spoiler:
With 2 knights left, how much damage can they possibly do?
Well, shooting with Skyfire takes down 1 flyrant (Catalyst did not go off last turn).
Acheron then assaults my mawloc and his Warlord assaults my grounded flyrant.
Ouch!
He "sixes" another mawloc.
An excellent turn by my opponent.
Tyranid 5
Spoiler:
Last mawloc comes in on an objective in case the game ends.
Flyrants move about.
I reduce the Acheron down to just 1 HP remaining but can't kill him.
Did I say I couldn't kill him? Mucolids assault....
And now only 1 knight, his Warlord, remains.
If game ends, we tie on Primary and I will take the Maelstrom Secondary as well as 2 of the bonus Tertiaries, but the game continues.
Knights 6
Spoiler:
His Warlord shoots down my Warlord.
Tyranid 6
Spoiler:
In my gut, I know that the game will just continue and so I do not land my flyrants to contest his objective (thus, giving me the Primary as well should the game end).
However, I cannot kill him with my shooting. He's at half-strength now.
I was right. The game will go on to a final turn.
Knights 7
Spoiler:
He shoots at my flyrant but with 4+ jink and FNP, my flyrant survives. Once again, I pass my grounding test (haven't failed them all game)
Tyranid 7
Spoiler:
I land. His Warlord survives but it doesn't matter.
I take both the Primary (his objective is contested, I've got a mawloc on my objective) as well as the Maelstrom Secondary. I also get the 2 bonus points (First Blood + Linebreaker, would have also gotten Big Game Hunter, his Acheron, had we been playing the right mission). Ben gets a point for killing my Warlord.
My opponent put up a bigger fight than I had expected. The Skyfire objective really helped him out. It caused the death of 2 of my flyrants, including my Warlord, as well as numerous jinks by my flyrants. Without it, the game wouldn't have even been that close. I did, however, get a little lucky with my Reserves on Turn 2. 4 flyrants and 3 mawlocs coming in was pretty good and the fact that all 3 mawlocs hit and then went back into reserves was better than I expected. Despite the matchup, Ben did play well. He kept "feeding" me his assault Knights by moving them into my "range" so that he could continue to shoot with his shooty knights. He would then move his knights behind me whenever he could to make it hard for me to get into his side armor. Finally, I believe my Warp Blasts did a couple of hull points here and there. However, I just couldn't roll a on the damage table with them.
To be fair, I like looking at the armies to occasionally find alternate paint schemes and methods to help me improve my own armies. That being said, also mildly amused that Geoff brought the army he did. I figured he would stay on a Tyranid binge. I just have one question. How did you guys mix up the first scenario Jim?
Geoff's been playing bugs forever. It's about time to re-invest into the hobby by adding another army. It is also a good idea as it adds variety to your play-style. For me at least, I'd get bored if I just play 1 army ever. Thus, I have multiple armies which I can rotate every time I play to keep things "fresh". I think Geoff is at that point where he needs to rotate his armies.
As for the mission, we just didn't hear them annouce to do the last mission first, so we played the first mission first (I mean the first mission on our packet). No biggie, as long as both parties agree on it. All the TO's really care about is that you turn in the score at the end of the game.
Note: We actually played the wrong mission, but the result was just the same nevertheless.
I think I talked to maybe two to three others that did the same thing playing, Mission 5 first. I almost did it as well but I knew something was off when if wasn't Emperors Will.
jy2, thank you for your awesome pictures, analysis and battle reports of these GT's that you go to. They truly are inspiring and very entertaining as well!
yukondal wrote: jy2, thank you for your awesome pictures, analysis and battle reports of these GT's that you go to. They truly are inspiring and very entertaining as well!
Note: We actually played the wrong mission, but the result was just the same nevertheless.
I think I talked to maybe two to three others that did the same thing playing, Mission 5 first. I almost did it as well but I knew something was off when if wasn't Emperors Will.
Congrats to you for winning Best Space Wolves. That is a great achievement indeed for running an army that is just as extreme as mine.
ibushi wrote: Great stuff JY -- especial thanks for the photo rundown of all the armies, is great to see all those!
Quick question -- I didnt think BAO missions used mysterious objectives, but sounds like your opponent got a skyfire nexus?
Keep up the great reports, looking forward to more
Sure, the BAO uses Mysterious Objectives. The only time the missions don't use the rules in the BRB are:
1. If the mission pack explicitly tells you not to use it.
2. If the mission pack modifies the rules.
3. If you and your opponent both either agree not to play it or you both forget about it.
Otherwise, Mysterious Objectives is as much a part of the game as taking an armor save. Probably what you are thinking about is Mysterious Forests/terrain, which in early ITC play was not used.
deathmagiks wrote: Your #5 opponent is a good friend of mine, I'll be really excited to see that bat rep. Subscribed.
Thanks, he was a really cool guy and was drinking throughout the entire tournament. He even gave me 3 beers. I'd gladly play him again and next time, I'll bring the beers.
Do you know how the Space Marine armored strikeforce with the knight fared?
Sorry, but I don't.
If it wasn't Battle Company, then I don't think it did as well.
I looked at the results. There were a lot of marine players. I don't think any marine/knight players finished very high in the standings.
Yeah, Marines were everywhere. The new Battle Company is really good, but it is nowhere near broken. And I say this from the standpoint as both a BC player as well as someone who has played against them before. I think Steve Sisk, the guy who won the BAO last year, might have been the highest-placing Space Marine player and he ran the Battle Company.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey guys, do me a favor.
There's a lot of pictures here on p.1 already. This page is going to be slow as heck for the mobile readers.
Please bump this thread to p.2 and I will begin Game #2 there to alleviate the bandwidth issue for the mobile phone readers.
Its games like these that just make me weep at how bad mech armies have it in this edition. These giant vehicles of death just being glanced to death like no ones business. Very lucky that you guys rolled up the mysterious objectives and he got skyfire or else this game might have been even more one-sided. I’m pretty sure I didn’t roll for any mysterious the entire tournament. Already too much paper work to remember (what objectives I have to grab and my opponent needs to get) without worrying about random objectives giving bonuses as well.
Panzer1944 wrote: Its games like these that just make me weep at how bad mech armies have it in this edition. These giant vehicles of death just being glanced to death like no ones business. Very lucky that you guys rolled up the mysterious objectives and he got skyfire or else this game might have been even more one-sided. I’m pretty sure I didn’t roll for any mysterious the entire tournament. Already too much paper work to remember (what objectives I have to grab and my opponent needs to get) without worrying about random objectives giving bonuses as well.
Mech isn't terrible, its just that certain things can be wiped out rather painfully when you have certain conditions. To be fair, that knight army was probably good, it's just that they can't do much verses highly mobile haywire platforms that just drown them in it.
Good to know about the mysterious objectives -- I guess the ITC events all use them then? Definitely thought it was the other way around..
Yeah, the ITC uses them. Though both parties can opt not to use them consensually or if they both just happen to forget.
Unyielding Hunger wrote: I cannot wait to see that game on page 2. Odd though, my phone handles it well.
The newer phones are better able to handle them due to their larger memory and better/faster reception. It is the slightly older phones that will be slower to download the images or have enough space to store them in cache memory.
Panzer1944 wrote: Its games like these that just make me weep at how bad mech armies have it in this edition. These giant vehicles of death just being glanced to death like no ones business. Very lucky that you guys rolled up the mysterious objectives and he got skyfire or else this game might have been even more one-sided. I’m pretty sure I didn’t roll for any mysterious the entire tournament. Already too much paper work to remember (what objectives I have to grab and my opponent needs to get) without worrying about random objectives giving bonuses as well.
Mech got better in this edition. However, the newer armies are getting better and more abundant anti-tank as well. Tyranids are especially good at dealing with mech due to their superior mobility and their ability to shoot haywire templates. Oh, and massed S6 shooting can be good AT versus lighter armor.
Panzer1944 wrote: Its games like these that just make me weep at how bad mech armies have it in this edition. These giant vehicles of death just being glanced to death like no ones business. Very lucky that you guys rolled up the mysterious objectives and he got skyfire or else this game might have been even more one-sided. I’m pretty sure I didn’t roll for any mysterious the entire tournament. Already too much paper work to remember (what objectives I have to grab and my opponent needs to get) without worrying about random objectives giving bonuses as well.
Mech isn't terrible, its just that certain things can be wiped out rather painfully when you have certain conditions. To be fair, that knight army was probably good, it's just that they can't do much verses highly mobile haywire platforms that just drown them in it.
The knights actually gave me a harder time to kill than I thought. Through good movement/positioning, they can make it hard for flyrants to get into good shooting positions. The first turn, flyrants can maneuver very easily to kill a knight. But after that, the knight can maneuver behind the flyrants to force them to either fly away or to land on the ground.
That army is a nightmare to play against for most ground armies. However, its main counter is a flyer army, especially one that can very easily kill 1 knight a turn. My army just happened to be the paper to his rock army.
1. Hold Maelstrom Objective 1.
2. Hold Maelstrom Objective 2.
3. Hold Maelstrom Objective 3.
4. Have more scoring units at least partially further than 12" from your deployment table edge than your opponent.
5. Have a scoring unit at least partially within the enemy deployment zone.
6. Have at least 3 of your and none of your opponent's scoring units within 12" of your deployment edge.
Tertiary Objectives: Ground Control, Linebreaker, Table Quarters, 1-pt each
This game could go either ways. My flying tyrants have a slight advantage over his units. However, there is so many LOS-blocking terrain (BLOS) on this map that he can easily hide his units. Then all he has to do is to turbo-boost them behind my flyrants and I will either have to fly off the table or land my flyrants in order to deal with them. Also, hornets won't have a problem going flat-out. That is because they can move flat-out (for a total of 36" movement each) and still be able to snap-fire. They are actually pretty good against my flyrants in that regards. Overall, with Eldar going 2nd, they have a huge advantage over my bugs in the Maelstrom Secondary mission. However, since we are playing Purge the Alien and a large portion of my army is in the air, Eldar is going to be a large underdog in the Primary mission. So I take Primary. My opponent might take Secondary. It's going to be a game of who has the most Tertiary objectives will probably take the game if I am not able to table my opponent.
One thing to note is that on this table, there were basically 5 large 12"x12" BLOS terrain which were also ruins. I felt the terrain somewhat unfair in favor of my army and so I offered to make the game more "fair". We basically turned 2 of the large blocks of terrain upside down (now they're BLOS tunnels only!) so that now there were only 3 pieces of ruins (but still 5 pieces of BLOS terrain).
Psychic powers include a couple of Horrors, a couple of Screams, 1 Onslaught, 1 Paroxysm and 4 Warp Blasts. However, no Catalyst.
Tyranid deployment. This is one of the ruins flipped upside down to become a tunnel. My flyrants are actually underneath the tunnel, not on top of it.
Christian deploys his Inquisition inside the bunker. He decides to reserve everything else, even though there was enough BLOS terrain to hide a considerable portion of his army.
Flyrants fly forwards. Right-most flyrant is on the ground to capture one of the Maelstrom objectives (a unit within 12" of the enemy deployment edge).
I am setting up this turn for the next.
Eldar 1
Spoiler:
The Inquisition shoots at my right-most flyrant and takes 2W off of him.
I get 1 Maelstrom point this turn (unit within 12" of my opponent's deployment edge). My opponent, none.
Tyranids 2
Spoiler:
2 mawlocs and 2 mucolids come in.
Flyrants go after the bunker and all those inside.
When the dust is settled, I've taken out the bunker, Coteaz and all of his henchmen.
VP's - Eldar: 0, Tyranids: 3
My Warlord then "runs" off the table and into Ongoing Reserves.
Eldar 2
Spoiler:
Almost all of his reserves come in. 2 units of hornets come in onto the right flank (my right).
1 unit comes in from the left flank and moves flat-out.
All but 1 unit of scatterbikes come in and they go after my mawloc in the right corner (from my perspective).
Without Catalyst, my mawloc easily goes down.
VP's - Eldar: 1, Tyranids: 3
Actually, he is able to take down both mawlocs, though it takes most of his armies' firepower in order to do so.
VP's - Eldar: 2, Tyranids: 3
Bikers then make their assault jump moves.
Tyranids 3
Spoiler:
Warlord comes back in. He is actually facing the hornets but because of his wings, I turn him 90 degrees to be able to fit him there. Mawloc goes after the hornets.
Flyrants go after the bikers.
1 flyrant goes after the hornets on the other flank.
The last flyrant flies off the table.
Not much happens in the psychic phase as I either fail to cast Warp Blast, fail to hit or he makes his cover saves.
It takes 2 flyrants to take down 1 unit of bikers (the first flyrant killed 4 and I didn't want the last biker there to live).
VP's - Eldar: 2, Tyranids: 4
Shooting by my Warlord is only takes out 1 hornet as my opponent jink away most of my shots.
Same thing here. He only loses 1 hornet.
Mawloc then makes the charge, though the spore mines fail.
I kill another 1 hornet.
Overall, not a great shooting turn. I was hoping to have done more damage to his hornets.
Eldar 3
Spoiler:
Eldar movement.
His last unit of bikers come in.
He manages to take out 1 of the flyrants in the air (stupid me...I opted not to jink and a unit of 2 hornets, needing 6's to hit, hit and wounded me 2-3 times).
VP's - Eldar: 3, Tyranids: 4
The rest of the army takes out my 3rd mawloc but fails to harm my Warlord.
VP's - Eldar: 4, Tyranids: 4
I do not get any Maelstrom objectives this turn. My Eldar opponent gets both of his (I believe it is 1 unit within 12" of my deployment edge and one of the objectives). Currently, Eldar is leading 2-1 on the Maelstrom Secondary.
Tyranids 4
Spoiler:
Warlord and flyrant coming in from Ongoing Reserves go after the hornets.
Other flyrant continues to work on the bikes.
Last turn prepares to turn around.
I take out the unit of 3 hornets.
VP's - Eldar: 4, Tyranids: 5
Other flyrant takes out the solitary hornet.
VP's - Eldar: 4, Tyranids: 6
Eldar 4
Spoiler:
Eldar movement.
Both units of 5 scatterbikes shoot at my Warlord and only manage to take 1W off of him.
Ok, that helps to offset his great saves by his bikers last turn against my flyrant.
The rest of his shooting does 1W to a flyrant and grounds him as well.
As far as Maelstrom goes, I am behind. I do not get any this turn due to my flyrants being in the air while my opponents gets 1 or maybe even both of his.
Tyranids 5
Spoiler:
It's crunch time! My Warlord lands on an objective, both for Ground Control and the Table Quarter tertiary objectives (it might have been one of my Maelstrom objectives as well).
Mawloc mishaps. My opponent puts him in the Eldar corner. Thanks for Linebreaker.
My other flyrant lands as well. What I'm really hoping to do is to cause enough wounds to force Morale tests.
My grounded flyrant prepares to assault his Warlord Autarch's unit.
Shooting here is abysmal as I only take out 1 biker from each unit.
And to make matters worse, both of my flyrants, including my Warlord, are on the ground.
However, I do take out his last hornet.
VP's - Eldar: 4, Tyranids: 7
Flyrant shoots down 4 bikers and then assault the Autarch's unit. We stay stuck in combat with no kills each.
Eldar 5
Spoiler:
Bikers move away. But instead of shooting....
....they turbo-boost to grab the Maelstrom objective as well as for the Ground Control bonus point.
All 8 bikers go after my Warlord on the ground.....gulp!
This time, it is time for me to make my saves! My Warlord makes all but 1 save.
However, his bikers then use their assault jump move to wrestle Objective #3 as well as Ground Control away from my Warlord.
In combat, his Autarch keeps on making his Invulnerable saves. His Warlord Autarch then puts 1W on my flyrant.
So far, I am winning the Primary. Eldar is winning the Secondary. We both have Linebreaker. We are both tied on Table Quarters. However, Christian just took Ground Control with his ObSec troops over my Warlord.
If the game ends now, I lose by 1-point (Eldar 6, Tyranids 5).
We roll to see if the game continues.....
Tyranids 6
Spoiler:
Fortunately for me, the game goes on.
My opponent gets really unlucky here. He fails more saves than he should and I wipe out both units of 4 bikers. (But to be fair I did Warp Blast both units with the S5 AP3 blast while they were clumped together and both blasts hit directly.)
Flyrant lands on the central Objective #1. Warp Blast and shooting wipes out the unit of 5 bikers there as well.
Finally, my flyrant finishes off his Warlord and lone scatterbike in assault.
That game was a little too close for comfort. Despite an Eldar tabling, I almost and would have lost the game had it ended on 5. I was fortunate that it didn't. After the game, Christian and I were talking about his deployment. I felt that he had 2 choices - 1) to hide his units behind BLOS terrain Turn 1 and then come out firing or 2) to reserve his army like he did. Initially, I was thinking that it would have been better for him to deploy everything on the table and to just try to down my flyrants through sheer Volume of Fire (VoF). After all, I did not have any Catalyst in my army. However, after reflecting on our game, I agree with his strategy to reserve the majority of his army. His strategy to try to survive until Turn 5 was the right choice, especially since he was going 2nd and he had more ObSec units than I had.
I do have to admit that I got lucky on Turn 6 also. Throughout the first five turns, both of our dice were about average. Then on Turn 6, Christian's dice just took a nose dive. I really wasn't expecting to table him. I was hoping for maybe a 6-4 or 6-5 win but his dice just did not want to cooperate with him. Overall, Christian played his army very well despite the bad matchup for him.
So I am at 21 out of a total of 22 Battle Points currently. Next round should be a pretty tough matchup. As a matter of fact, it turns out that my next round opponent will be GT-winner, BLOG/BOLS/FLG contributing writer and fellow Team0Comp teammate, Abusepuppy, running Space Marines Battle Company with Eldar allies! Stay tuned....
sumi808 wrote: Wow thats sportsmanship at the highest level. Willing to do that even at a high level tournament like this one. I tip my hat to you good sir
Thanks.
Despite it being a competition, it is still just a game for fun. Also, I'd feel bad about my win if the terrain was too much in my favor.
Just wanted to say that your reports are fun to read and the tactics are interesting to read. However at times it seems that you are the king of getting that extra turn that you need to win the game. I know luck is important part of the game (dice being dice), but still, you always seem to get that last turn you need to win.
guardpiper wrote: Just wanted to say that your reports are fun to read and the tactics are interesting to read. However at times it seems that you are the king of getting that extra turn that you need to win the game. I know luck is important part of the game (dice being dice), but still, you always seem to get that last turn you need to win.
Actually, the opposite has been happening to me lately. This game is an exception, but there are more games where I needed for the game to end on 5 (thus, giving me the win) but it went on and I lose. This has happened a few times in some of the smaller tourneys that I've been to. Ironically, overall, I feel that luck has been going against me insofar as games going on or ending on 5 when I need them to. I've been losing more games like this than I've been winning.
Yeah, that is why I wouldn't land my flyrants to try to grab Maelstrom objectives, especially without Catalyst in the army. A grounded flyrant is a dead flyrant, but I got lucky on Turn 5 with my Warlord not dying. His army's firepower is downright scary. I was willing to give up the Maelstrom Secondary in order to try to win the game.
The terrain on that table was pretty bad for the Eldar (and just bad in general) but if you take a one-dimensional army you're going to encounter that sort of problem from time to time. Not that you were wrong to rearrange things, just that that's part of the risk and the challenge of taking a spam army.
Saber wrote: The terrain on that table was pretty bad for the Eldar (and just bad in general) but if you take a one-dimensional army you're going to encounter that sort of problem from time to time. Not that you were wrong to rearrange things, just that that's part of the risk and the challenge of taking a spam army.
Actually, it isn't as bad as you think. He's got 2 things going for him:
1. Mobile firepower. That has always been a strength of Eldar. He's got the ability to quickly bypass terrain in his way to get his shots off, especially the hornets.
2. Jump Shoot Jump. Such an army works really well the more BLOS terrain you have. He didn't really take advantage of it here (because my army can easily get to his no matter where he tries to hide them and because he chose to reserve them), but his army would have been a nightmare to play against by almost any other army besides my flyrant-spam Tyranids.
Also, I don't believe his army is really one-dimensional. It's got excellent firepower, excellent mobility and a mix of both high-strength and low-AP shooting. It's only got 1 main weakness and that is against flyer-spam armies. Otherwise, it is a very solid army. Actually, both of our armies are very much alike. Both of our armies are very strong, but each has 1 major weakness. His weakness is his lack of AA. My weakness is my lack of a ground game. But I supposed that when he built his army, he was going to accept his weakness, just like I was going to accept the fact that my army will have problems against ObSec-spam armies.
If that's not a one-dimensional spam army then nothing is. I'm not saying it's a bad army, as it can shoot and move very well, but it only has two kinds of unit in it and they do almost exactly the same thing and are vulnerable to almost exactly the same sorts of tactics and weapons. It's no more diverse than the Knights in game 1.
Game #2 vs Sean's Battle Company Space Marines + Eldar
Let me tell you a little about my opponent in this game. Sean Morgan, aka Abusepuppy, is a writer who has contributed articles to the likes of 3++, Frontline Gaming, Bell of Lost Souls and other BLOG's. He writes a lot of Tactical pieces as well as some reviews. Some of his more current articles include:
So right off the bat, I knew that Sean was a very tactical person with a great understanding of how the game works. The first time I met Sean, it was at TSHFT GT 2015. There, he went through 3 of my Team0Comp members - Ben Schimoller aka Mr.MoreTanks, Ben Cromwell (who was once a member of Team USA at the ETC) and finally the man himself, Mr. Reece "Reecius" Robbins. Not only did Sean make it onto Team0Comp that day, but he ended up winning the entire GT as well.
Win, lose or draw, I am happy to have been matched up against Sean. Even though my army has problems against ObSec-spam armies, I am really looking forwards to this game, even if it means putting my tournament hopes in jeopardy.
1. Hold Maelstrom Objective 1.
2. Hold Maelstrom Objective 2.
3. Destroy an Enemy Unit.
4. Destroy an Enemy Unit.
5. Have a scoring unit at least partially within the enemy deployment zone.
6. Have at least 3 of your and none of your opponent's scoring units within your deployment edge.
Tertiary Objectives: First Strike, Slay the Warlord, Table Quarters, 1-pt each
First of all, I know I can decimate Sean's army. At least I have the potential to do so. I designed my army with Battle Company, Scatterbike Eldar, Ravenwing and massed infantry armies in mind. I've got enough killing power, or so I hope. The million dollar question is, does my opponent have the resiliency to outlast my offense?
In Battle Company, Sean is essentially playing with 530-pts of free transports. That's a 2380-pt army against everyone else's 1850. Now is that broken? Hardly. His units are killable and his army can be dominated. However, with the abundance of Objective Secured, or ObSec, units in his army, he will usually outlast most armies and win by amassing more points than his opponent, even though his army is devastated by the time the game ends. While he doesn't have the hitting power of an alpha-strike army, he's usually got the staying power to have many of his units survive to claim objectives by the end of the game.
His army has got 30 units, of which 26 are ObSec! He's got a lot of low-AP shooting with meltas/multi-meltas in 8 out of his 10 marines squads (12 meltas/multi-meltas in total) and 9 las/plas transports. He's got decent mid-strength shooting with 48 S6 shots from his Eldar detachment. He's actually got good mobility with fast Eldar jetbikes and scouting Marine units. Thanks to Khan, all of his units (and their dedicated transports) have the Scout USR. A strategy of theirs is to just scout up onto Objectives and then to just try to survive, potentially scoring points every turn for Maelstrom objectives. You can't really tarpit his units as the entire White Scars Chapter has Hit-&-Run. This army truly is a problem matchup for most armies.
Fortunately for me, I have some experience with Battle Company. As a matter of fact, I myself run White Scars Battle Company (though instead of Eldar allies, I run Centurions in drop pods). More importantly, I've played Battle Company against Pentyrant Tyranids before and so I have an idea of how this game may end. Usually, in such a matchup, I will have to give up on the Maelstrom Secondary. There is almost no way for me to beat ObSec-spam in the Secondaries. I mainly need to focus on 1) winning the Primary and getting more Tertiary bonus points or 2) focus on trying to table my opponent....which is something that I actually have the potential to do. Going 2nd will help me with trying to win the objective game, but if I want to try to table my opponent, then going 1st would be better. I'll decide after I see how Sean deploys.
I get a good Warlord Trait this turn - Conqueror of Cities.
My psychic powers are ok - 2 Catalysts, 3 Horrors, 2 Onslaughts, 2 Psychic Screams and 1 Blast. Psychic Scream could potentially be very good in this matchup.
Space Marine depoyment. Scouts to infiltrate and Assault squad in Drop Pod to come in on Turn 1.
I hide all of my flyrants behind the ruins (the flyrant on the top is actually on the ground floor). Fortunately for me, the only thing Sean can see behind the ruins are my wings....which does not count for targeting reasons.
I hide the spore mines in the other ruins. He then infiltrates 1 unit of scouts in my corner.
Mawlocs and mucolids to come in from Deep Strike reserves.
My opponent infiltrates his other unit of scouts onto the Relic and then does his Scout moves to spread out his vehicles.
You didn't think he was going to make it easy for me to haywire multiple vehicles with my egrubs, did you?
I didn't keep track of the Maelstrom objectives (actually, I did....but I turned it into the TO's). I will go over briefly with them with what I remember.
Assault squad comes in.
Space Marines move.
No shooting at my flyrants because his guys cannot see them.
He does flame my spores to death, but they don't count towards anything.
Jetbikes turbo-boost away from me and towards the back of his deployment zone.
Tyranids 1
Spoiler:
This is going to hurt....for Marines.
Psychic Scream kills 4 scouts on the Relic. Shooting by 1 flyrant finishes the job.
My shooting also takes out 1 razorback, 2 HP's off from another (I believe I immobilize it) and 1 HP from a 3rd.
I'm actually leading on Maelstrom objectives! My opponent rolled 2 Kill-a-Unit objectives, which he was not able to do. I had 1 Kill-a-Unit objective, which I achieved, and another ground objective, which I did not.
Space Marines 2
Spoiler:
Sorry, but I didn't take any photos for this turn.
Razors shuffle around. He then focuses his entire army onto the flyrant without FNP - all his las/plas razors and all of his jetbikes - only to do a total of 1W on him. Ouch!
Tyranids 2
Spoiler:
3 of my mawlocs come in. All 3 scatters off (I put them right in the center of 4 transports!). However, the left mawloc still manages to blow up a razorback (with the other Assault squad in it).
Flyrants then go after the jetbikes. Now you see them....
....now you don't.
3 units of jetbikes and the Farseer as well....gone, just like that. Only 1 unit of jetbikes survive because they were hiding behind the ruins.
Brutal turn for Marines this turn as I manage to take out 5 units - 3 windrider jetbike squads, the Farseer and a razorback.
We both get 1 Maelstrom Objective this turn (he had 1 Kill-a-Unit which he was not able to achieve and I had 1 Kill-a-Unit which I was able to). So far, I am actually ahead on the Maelstroms!
Space Marines 3
Spoiler:
Marines move towards the Relic.
He focuses on and kills a mawloc. I think he might have put 1-2 wounds on the other.
Tyranids 3
Spoiler:
Flyrants move onto the ruins (except my Warlord).
This turn, I de-mech almost his entire army with my shooting.
I also take out his last unit of jetbikes, tabling his Eldar counter-part.
Mawloc assaults his Assault squad. He kills 1 or 2 guys and then Hit-&-Runs out of combat (we both opted to Hit-&-Run out).
The other mawloc charges a razor and do 2 HP's of damage to it.
Finally, the mucolid charges his marines, blows up and takes with him all but 1 marine.
Not bad for the little guy. 15-pts take out 56-pts of models.
This turn, Marines achieve both of their Maelstrom objectives while I fail to achieve either of mine. Marines take a 3-2 lead on the Maelstroms.
Space Marines 4
Spoiler:
Marines scramble. Khan and his unit of devastators prepare for assault.
Mawloc actually dies to rending snipers.
The rest of his shooting does 2 things....jack and squat.
Khan actually gets lucky and roll a to wound, thus insta-gibbing my mawloc.
Come to think of it, I don't think Khan could have made that charge because he was just de-meched the previous turn. Then again, my memory is a little fuzzy. Maybe he got out a turn earlier? Oh well, doesn't matter.
Tyranids 4
Spoiler:
I go in for the kill, grounding all of my flyrants.
There's a slight point of contention here. I put my 2 left flyrants "slightly" in the ruins (I actually announced it on my turn). But when he goes to shoot at them later, his point of contention was how could they be slightly in the ruins when you can't physically fit them there? In any case, I offered to have the one he shot at jink instead, but he says that it doesn't really matter at that point.
This turn, I shoot down a lot of Marines as well as his Warlord, Khan. I also finish off the rest of his transports.
At the end of the turn, I believe that I am still down by 1 on the Maelstroms.
Space Marines 5
Spoiler:
Though battered, my opponent still has a shot at winning. He moves all of his guys to protect the Relic. He is also up by 1 on Maelstroms. If I cannot wipe out all of his guys by the Relic (and if the game ends after this game turn), then he will win the Primary and possibly maybe even the Secondary.
Shooting puts 1W on a flyrant.
Here is also where we have the discussion about my flyrant in the ruins.
Now, it's time for his Marines to hold on for their dear lives.
Tyranids 5
Spoiler:
I expect to take the Relic. I refuse to lose, especially after completely annihilating his army.
By the ways, my mawloc scatters completely off of his marines in the middle.
And I do take it!
This turn, I score 1 more Maelstrom than my opponent, thus tying the Secondary.
We roll to see if the game continues....and it does.
At this point, I will surpass him in the Secondary and can easily grab all 3 Tertiary bonus points. With that, we stop the game and I get full points, 11-0.
That game went much better than I had expected. A combination of factors led to my victory.
1. The huge BLOS terrain allowed me to hide my flyrants from his potential alpha-strike. In the 1st 2 turns of the game, he only managed to kill the spore mines and cause 1-2W on my flyrants. Ouch!
2. Actually winning the Maelstroms took me by surprise. I was willing to concede the Maelstroms from the get-go. However, the luck of draw (or roll, in this case) gave me very achievable objectives (Kill-a-Unit) while at the same time, gave my opponent very hard to achieve objectives (also Kill-a-Unit objectives). I believe 4 out of 5 turns, he rolled at least a Kill objective, thus allowing me to compete with his army in the Secondary.
3. He had no answers to my flyers and my strategy of Denial gave him no targets to kill....other than the flyers that he had no answers to.
4. I went 2nd.
I knew my army had the firepower/offense to ravage his army. That much I found out from my test game with my Battle Company against Tyranids. However, despite his losses, Sean still had a chance to win on Turn 5. This just goes to show how resilient and good the Battle Company is/can be. Alas, I knew from my practice game that flyrant-spam Tyranids is a potential matchup problem for Battle Company Space Marines and it proved to be true, at least in this game.
After Day #1, I am at 32 out of a possible 33-pts. Alan "Pajamapants" Bajramovic is in the top spot currently with a maximum 33-pts. 2 other players - Brett "Tomb King" Perkins and my Team0Comp teammate, James Carmona - round out the Top 4 with 32-pts each as well.
Coming up next....I am on Table #1 against Pajamapants!
First of all, I know I can decimate Sean's army. At least I have the potential to do so. I designed my army with Battle Company, Scatterbike Eldar, Ravenwing and massed infantry armies in mind. I've got enough killing power, or so I hope. The million dollar question is, does my opponent have the resiliency to outlast my offense?
In Battle Company, Sean is essentially playing with 530-pts of free transports. That's a 2380-pt army against everyone else's 1850. Now is that broken? Hardly. His units are killable and his army can be dominated. However, with the abundance of Objective Secured, or ObSec, units in his army, he will usually outlast most armies and win by amassing more points than his opponent, even though his army is devastated by the time the game ends. While he doesn't have the hitting power of an alpha-strike army, he's usually got the staying power to have many of his units survive to claim objectives by the end of the game.
His army has got 30 units, of which 26 are ObSec! He's got a lot of low-AP shooting with meltas/multi-meltas in 8 out of his 10 marines squads (12 meltas/multi-meltas in total) and 9 las/plas transports. He's got decent mid-strength shooting with 48 S6 shots from his Eldar detachment. He's actually got good mobility with fast Eldar jetbikes and scouting Marine units. Thanks to Khan, all of his units (and their dedicated transports) have the Scout USR. A strategy of theirs is to just scout up onto Objectives and then to just try to survive, potentially scoring points every turn for Maelstrom objectives. You can't really tarpit his units as the entire White Scars Chapter has Hit-&-Run. This army truly is a problem matchup for most armies.
Fortunately for me, I have some experience with Battle Company. As a matter of fact, I myself run White Scars Battle Company (though instead of Eldar allies, I run Centurions in drop pods). More importantly, I've played Battle Company against Pentyrant Tyranids before and so I have an idea of how this game may end. Usually, in such a matchup, I will have to give up on the Maelstrom Secondary. There is almost no way for me to beat ObSec-spam in the Secondaries. I mainly need to focus on 1) winning the Primary and getting more Tertiary bonus points or 2) focus on trying to table my opponent....which is something that I actually have the potential to do. Going 2nd will help me with trying to win the objective game, but if I want to try to table my opponent, then going 1st would be better. I'll decide after I see how Sean deploys.
The Shrike wrote: I learn more about 40k from reading battle reports between guys like Jim and Sean than I do actually playing games of 40k.
This should be an epic one
Thanks!
This battle will be a good litmus test of how my bugs will fare in the current meta. If I can do alright here, then I think my bugs will be good in the current meta.
Love your battle reports, Jy2. You are my favorite by far. You make each game interesting and break things down at a tactical level that someone who doesn't play in tourneys can easily understand without dumbing things down.
You're probably the most popular battle reporter on Dakka, and for a good reason! Love the pictures, tactical insights, the right amount of detail etc.
He was all good to charge with Khan. You can't charge if you left your transport that turn (unless its an assault vehicle). However, he didn't leave his transport that turn, but rather you blew up the Razorback he was in on your Turn 3. This means that he started his turn not in a transport, and so was all good to declare a charge and kill your Mawloc!
These battle reports have been great! Thanks for posting them!
He was all good to charge with Khan. You can't charge if you left your transport that turn (unless its an assault vehicle). However, he didn't leave his transport that turn, but rather you blew up the Razorback he was in on your Turn 3. This means that he started his turn not in a transport, and so was all good to declare a charge and kill your Mawloc!
This is incorrect; the rules are very clear:
If a unit disembarks from a destroyed vehicle during the enemy turn, it cannot charge in the Assault phase of its own turn unless the destroyed vehicle had the Assault Vehicle special rule.
This was to correct the rather absurd and counter-intuitive situation that occurred in early 6th (before it was FAQ'd to match the above) where you'd sometimes have to actively avoid killing enemy transports, since doing so would let the contents charge you.
He was all good to charge with Khan. You can't charge if you left your transport that turn (unless its an assault vehicle). However, he didn't leave his transport that turn, but rather you blew up the Razorback he was in on your Turn 3. This means that he started his turn not in a transport, and so was all good to declare a charge and kill your Mawloc!
These battle reports have been great! Thanks for posting them!
P501 iPad:
If a unit disembarks from a destroyed vehicule during your opponent turn, it cannot charge in the assault phase of its own turn unless the destroyed vehicule had the assault rule.
There seems to be problems with the pictures, some don't match the text of are from a différent game.
If a unit disembarks from a destroyed vehicle during the enemy turn, it cannot charge in the Assault phase of its own turn unless the destroyed vehicle had the Assault Vehicle special rule.
This was to correct the rather absurd and counter-intuitive situation that occurred in early 6th (before it was FAQ'd to match the above) where you'd sometimes have to actively avoid killing enemy transports, since doing so would let the contents charge you.
Wow! Thanks! Guess I'm still getting some 6th stuck in my head ;-)
He was all good to charge with Khan. You can't charge if you left your transport that turn (unless its an assault vehicle). However, he didn't leave his transport that turn, but rather you blew up the Razorback he was in on your Turn 3. This means that he started his turn not in a transport, and so was all good to declare a charge and kill your Mawloc!
These battle reports have been great! Thanks for posting them!
P501 iPad:
If a unit disembarks from a destroyed vehicule during your opponent turn, it cannot charge in the assault phase of its own turn unless the destroyed vehicule had the assault rule.
There seems to be problems with the pictures, some don't match the text of are from a différent game.
Many thanks for the reports !
You're welcome.
With regards to the problems with the pictures, what do you mean? While it is conceivable that I might have accidentally posted pictures out of sequence, I don't really see any problems there, though I can be near-sighted when it comes to looking at my own pictures/report.
jy2 wrote: With regards to the problems with the pictures, what do you mean? While it is conceivable that I might have accidentally posted pictures out of sequence, I don't really see any problems there, though I can be near-sighted when it comes to looking at my own pictures/report.
It may be the first pic with the assault marines, there are two Skyrays on the next table. It looks like you've DSd behind them.
jy2 wrote: With regards to the problems with the pictures, what do you mean? While it is conceivable that I might have accidentally posted pictures out of sequence, I don't really see any problems there, though I can be near-sighted when it comes to looking at my own pictures/report.
It may be the first pic with the assault marines, there are two Skyrays on the next table. It looks like you've DSd behind them.
Cheers
Andrew
Oh.
The Tau belongs to other people playing on the table next to us. Basically, Sean deepstruck his drop pod in my deployment zone but it then scattered very close to the edge of my board edge.
Sort of amusing to say a list full of scatterbikes is one dimensional (it is), when a list of flyrants and mucolids is versatile. Shows how broken (F)MC's are in this game. Maybe my BA taxi service needs to ally the hive fleet leviathan
Jy2, why were you allowed to have all five flyrants in hiding when you couldn't physically fit them all there?
With regards to the problems with the pictures, what do you mean? While it is conceivable that I might have accidentally posted pictures out of sequence, I don't really see any problems there, though I can be near-sighted when it comes to looking at my own pictures/report.
I has pictures of the 3rd report (with grey razors) in the 2nd report. Seems fixed now, must have been a bug on my computer or something.
Sorry for the wait, guys. Been busy and just went to another tournament this past weekend. But now I will be back to writing. Hope to at least get started on Game #4 against Pajamapants tomorrow.
Naw wrote: Sort of amusing to say a list full of scatterbikes is one dimensional (it is), when a list of flyrants and mucolids is versatile. Shows how broken (F)MC's are in this game. Maybe my BA taxi service needs to ally the hive fleet leviathan
Jy2, why were you allowed to have all five flyrants in hiding when you couldn't physically fit them all there?
Dakkafexes in drop pods! LOL!
The flyrant models themselves could fit behind the ruins. It's just that their bulky wings, which do not count for LOS or targeting purposes, were making it hard for me to fit them in. Sean was ok with me putting that one flyrant on top of the ruins as a representation of where he is on the ground level. What he wasn't ok with was me putting my flyrants in front of the ruins but then claiming the cover saves for the ruins. But when I moved them on my turn, I did tell him that they were partially in terrain (since you can move through the walls, then you can definitely end your move partially within the terrain). Maybe he just didn't hear me or he didn't understand my intent.
DorianGray wrote: This is brutal Tyranid flyers destroy everything omg.
Abandon all hope.
It's not that bad. They are a bad matchup for a lot of armies, but they've got some matchup problems as well.
With regards to the problems with the pictures, what do you mean? While it is conceivable that I might have accidentally posted pictures out of sequence, I don't really see any problems there, though I can be near-sighted when it comes to looking at my own pictures/report.
I has pictures of the 3rd report (with grey razors) in the 2nd report. Seems fixed now, must have been a bug on my computer or something.
I've checked again and it's OK.
Strange
But anyway, thanks again
Oh, ok.
Anyways, glad they're ok now.
KillswitchUK wrote: This terrains rediculous. You can hide an entire army behind 1 peice of terrain!!! is the LVO going to be like this??
Not all of the terrain will be like this.
However, the top tables are more likely to have terrain like this.
Wait til you see the terrain I played on next turn (against Pajamapants). Got 2 words for you....mobile firepower.
Silverthorne wrote: Great reports. Those bugs look great. Are those the wings they come with? They seem bigger.
What would you consider a bad match up for the pentatyrants? Maybe doom sythe spam or those ork gravity cannons?
With my space marines all I can think of is a schism of mars raptor and a huge demon summoning conclave but I doubt even that would do much.
Yeah, those are the wings that came with them.
Any army with a strong ground presence can potentially be rough for Pentyrant Tyranids, especially if the ground units are resilient. The biggest weaknesses of Pentyrant is their ground game and in particular, Maelstrom objectives that are not of the Kill-a-unit variety. However, Pentyrant is great against MSU armies though.
Necrons are actually a problem matchup for Tyranids. They have a very, very resilient ground-based army. Necron flyer-spam will lose to bugs, but Decurion is a problem matchup for we bug players. Hence why I am running multiple mawlocs. They are my anti-Decurion as well as my anti-deathstar and anti-Ravenwing along with my anti-MSU.
The Green Tide with a Void Shield Generator will give my bugs problems. Otherwise, it will be a bad matchup for them as well. Traktor cannons I have an answer for so they aren't so bad. Against them, psychic powers like The Horror or Paroxysm will be your best friends.
Massed 2+ models will give bugs problems (especially centurions), which is why I brought so many mawlocs. They are my anti-centurion units as well.
Thanks for the Pics Jy2. I'm disappointed in the lack of fully painted armies though. I feel like with the speedy release system from GW...that more and more people can't get their armies painted fast enough.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DarthDiggler wrote: I appreciate the picture breakdown of armies you usually have from a tournament. This is one the best features anyone has ever done in a battle report.
I haven't played 40k for like a year and a half, but have been thinking of getting back into it. You better believe I'll be reading your stuff to learn the competitive meta again. Not sure if it's already too late to get in on LVO, but that would probably be my goal, if I can afford to go to any big tournaments any time soon.
Lol, it would just be nice to roll some dice - I haven't played ANY miniatures game since October...
Why isn't your battle report thread updated for 2015? I doubt this is the first tournament/game you've written a report for this year.
Alan "Pajamapants" Bajramovic has been on a tear as of late. For those of you who don' know, Alan is one of the most successful US tournament 40K players. He has won numerous Grand Tournaments (GT's) and is consistently ranked in the top of most of the tournaments he goes to. He is a member of Team USA for the ETC (though I'm not sure if he is going this year). Just before the BAO 2015, Alan has already won 2 large GT's, the Broadside Bash GT in Southern California and Wargamescon GT in Texas. 2 years ago, he was runner-up at the BAO 2013. After Day #1 of the BAO 2015, he is currently at the top with a maximum 33 out of 33-pts. I was actually hoping to get paired up against Pajamapants (or Tomb King) going into Game #4 and to my delight, I got my wish. Never mind the saying, "be careful what you wish for", I'm going to enjoy this game against one of the "greats" in this hobby of ours.
1. Hold Maelstrom Objective 1.
2. Hold Maelstrom Objective 2.
3. Hold Maelstrom Objective 3.
4. Destroy an enemy unit.
5. Destroy an enemy unit.
6. Destroy an enemy unit.
Tertiary Objectives: Big Game Hunter, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, 1-pt each
This will be a very interesting game. Alan definitely has the experience advantage in this matchup. I haven't played against Daemons in a long, long time so I'm not quite sure how to play against them. I know my shooting is deadly. However, at the same time, I am going to be shooting into T5/6 monstrous creatures with 2+ cover thanks to Be'lakor. We both are running FMC-spam armies. However, with Daemon summoning and 2nd turn, Alan will have the advantage in the Maelstrom Secondary. The key factors in the game are:
1. Terrain. Table #1, which is the table we will be playing on, is densely populated with terrain and more importantly, BLOS terrain. Coupled with Hammer & Anvil deployment and Alan can definitely survive - maybe even avoid - my 1st turn alpha-strike.
2. Tyranids going 1st with Master of Ambush. Alan opted to go second despite the fact that I got Master of Ambush as my Warlord trait. Obviously, he felt that going 2nd with both the Scouring Primary and the Maelstrom Secondary was worth the risk of eating my alpha-strike. How he deploys will be very telling of how the game will go.
3. Daemons going 2nd. If he can survive my alpha-strike, then Alan has a very good chance of taking this game. He has the final say in both the Primary and the Secondary objectives, and with Daemon summoning, he can have units almost anywhere on the table that he needs. How Turn 1 resolves will speak a lot as to how the game will go.
4. Psychic Powers. Alan's main offense will be vector strikes and his psychic powers. One power in particular will be especially potent - Psychic Shriek (of which 3 of his FMC's possess). I really don't have very good defense against Shriek, other than 1 Catalyst and just hoping that I roll low on my LD tests. On the other hand, I did get 1 Psychic Scream. However, Alan will be denying that on a 4+ with his higher-level psykers and he has a lot more power dice than I will. And then, of course, there will be the Summoning with which I will need to contend with.
Overall, my best chance of winning this game is to hit him hard on my 1st turn. If I can do that and maybe take down one of his FMC's early, then I will be in very good shape. If I cannot, then Alan will be the one in very good shape. Alan's deployment and my Turn 1 offense will be very indicative of how this game will go.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lighting on the pictures. Our table was right next to the window and the lighting outside affected my pictures.
Secondly, I did not take notes on Alan's psychic powers. He had Psychic Shriek on all 3 of his psykers and 1 summoning power for his Grimoire Daemon Prince (DP). Be'lakor, of course, comes with all the Telepathy powers, including Invisibility and Shrouding. As for his Daemonic Gifts, I believe his Bloodthirster (BT) had 4+ FNP and the Axe of Khorne. With 3++ Invuln (from the Grimoire), Invisibility and 4+ FNP, he is going to be all but unkillable.
For Warlord Traits, Fateweaver gets to re-roll the Warp Storm table and I get Master of Ambush.
Tyranid deployment.
I deploy 2 mawlocs on my 1 and 3 objectives respectively. I also deploy 1 flyrant.
Daemon deployment. He hides all of his FMC's behind the large blocking-LOS (BLOS) terrain. He then deploys his pink horrors at the very front of his deployment line and then strings them back into the BLOS ruins.
By the ways, ignore the 2nd unit of horrors hiding behind his bastion. I actually took this picture before he was finished with his deployment. He actually deploys them in the other ruins the same way he deploys his 1st unit, at the very front of the deployment line and then stringing them back into the other set of ruins.
With his deployment, I already knew that my Turn 1 alpha-strike was going to fail. It was a great counter-deployment against my army and especially against a Master of Ambush setup. I should have seen this coming as I myself have done this before as well against other Master of Ambush alpha-strike armies. Just from his deployment, I knew I gave Alan the advantage in this game. Not only did I give him 2nd turn, but he also managed to neutralize the primary strategy in which I was basing my tactics off of.
I am forced to deploy my flyrants 18" away from his units. I decide to go after his weak-side pink horrors instead (the side without all of his flying monstrous creatures, or FMC's). That is because 1) all of his FMC's were completely invisible to me due to terrain, 2) I did not want to get vector-struck by 4 FMC's and 3) I did not want to make it easy for him to Psychic Shriek me.
After our deployment, Alan goes to me, "Jim, you know what? I'd be very interested to see how you play this game."
"You know what, Alan?" I thought to myself, "So would I. So would I."
Right off the bat, I knew I was in trouble. The Maelstrom objectives did not want to cooperate with me. I leave 2 mawlocs on the table for the Objectives #1 and #3, with my flyrant readily available to jump onto Objective #2 if I need to. I need to seriously go for the Maelstrom objectives if I want any shot at winning.
And so what do I get for my 2 Maelstrom objectives? Kill 2 units against an army hiding behind BLOS terrain. On the other hand, Alan gets 2 very achievable and actual Objective Maelstrom objectives. Not that I was complaining in-game, but 2nd turn for my opponent, great counter-deployment by my opponent to nullify my strategy and now on top of all that, Maelstrom was being unkind....my hopes for a victory were sinking fast for this game.
1 flyrant takes a Wound from Perils. Even with Onslaught, I can't see enough horrors to wipe them out, only managing to kill the 8 that I could see.
Daemons 1
Spoiler:
Daemons fly out. All except for the D-thirster, who is still on the ground.
Cultists come out and the rest of his guys move around (horrors move to claim Objective #3 and cultists run to claim Objective #1).
Alan gets off Shrouding on Be'lakor and Invisibility on his BT. He attempts Psychic Shriek against me but I pass my LD tests.
My concerns for the Maelstrom are well-founded. Alan easily achieves both of his objectives (Objectives #1 and #3) whereas I fail to achieve either of mine (kill 2 units).
Tyranids 2
Spoiler:
Only 1 mawloc comes in and he kills 7 cultists.
I don't burrow with my mawlocs because I need them this turn for the Maelstrom objectives.
2 of my flyrants, including my Warlord, flies off the table.
2 of my flyrants go after his pink horrors, landing on the ground in order to do so. I want to weaken his psychic strength as well as to eliminate his sources for summoning. Moreover, I believe this unit has both the Incursion and Summoning psychic powers. Also, I am doing this so that next turn when his heldrake comes in, I can go after its rear armor (I am using my flyrants as helturkey "bait").
Shooting take out the horrors, but just barely (4+ cover with re-roll 1's).
I also shoot down his cultists with my other flyrant.
2 scoring, ObSec units down. However, getting his 3rd scoring unit will be problematic as it will take my 2 flyrants 2 turns to get to them.
Daemons 2
Spoiler:
Daemons continue to move up. Mr. BT stays on the ground, going after my mawloc.
Helturkey does not come in. Doh! That is actually a good thing for my opponent.
Alan casts Cursed Earth, Shrouding and Invisibility this turn (Invisibility on the BT). He also summons a unit of daemonettes.
Lastly, the daemonettes run to contest one of my Maelstrom objectives as well as to grab one of his.
I do get a break this turn. The D-thirster is about 3-4" away from my mawloc. Alan then rolls a , for his charge distance.
But wait...he then uses Fateweaver's re-roll to change one of his charge dice....and rolls another !
Alas, Alan still manages to get both of his Maelstrom objectives this turn (pink horrors and daemonettes on objectives) whereas I only manage to grab one of mine (only 1 of the mawloc objectives, the other is contested by his daemonettes). So far, even though Alan has barely done any damage to my army physically, he is killing me on the Maelstroms 4-1.
Tyranids 3
Spoiler:
This turn, I am going for broke. I am taking a huge gamble this turn and if it succeeds, I may be able to turn this game around.
I move all of my flyers after his triumvirate of flying daemons. Mawloc that is about to be shagged by his D-thirster burrows back into the ground. Unfortunately, I have to keep my other 2 mawlocs on the table due to the Maelstrom objectives.
I cast Onslaught on my 2 furthest flyrants. Catalyst, however, either fails or gets denied. Lastly, Alan denies my attempt at Psychic Scream.
So this is my plan. The glue that is holding his army together is Be'lakor. With Be'lakor around, his army is almost impossible to kill due to Shroud. Fatey and the Grimoire-DP have 2+ re-rollable cover because of him. I cannot kill them until after I deal with Be'lakor.
One of my flyrants cannot get into range to target Be'lakor even after his run move from Onslaught, so I only have 4 flyrants to shoot at him. Statistically, with 48 twin-linked S6 shots, 43 will hit, 29 will wound and he should fail 5 saves, minus 1 due to Fatey's re-roll. Thus, on average, even with 2+ cover and 1 re-roll, I should be able to take down the 4W Be'lakor.
I only do 1W to him after all my shooting. Le sigh....
Daemons 3
Spoiler:
Helturkey comes in and vector-strikes one of my flyrants, taking off 3W and then causing him to fall onto the ground.
FMC Daemons vector-strike one of my flyrants, killing him in the process.
They then psychic shriek my mawloc into oblivion....
....and summon another unit of daemonettes to take my objective #1.
In the Shooting phase, all 3 of his FMC's run off the table.
Daemonettes assault my mawloc on the objective....
....and take him out with mass rending. Well, that just made up for his BT's failed charge last turn.
Another turn of Maelstrom fail. Alan gets both of his and denies me both of mine for a 6-1 Maelstrom lead.
Tyranids 4
Spoiler:
At this point, I don't care about the Maelstrom anymore. I am too far behind. My only chances for a victory is to take the Primary and then to hopefully win on the bonus Tertiaries.
I clear out the daemonettes on my Objective #1 but am unable to clear out his daemonettes in terrain on my Objective #3.
My Warlord also takes out his helturkey by shooting it in the butt (despite it have a 3++ save from the Grimoire).
Daemons 4
Spoiler:
Sorry, but my memory is a little blurred here. Because of my focus on the game, I did not take many pictures for the rest of the game.
His FMC's come back in.
In the psychic phase, his daemons Psychic Shriek my Warlord flyrant to death.
The Warp Storm brings in a unit of pink horrors and they land on an objective.
Tyranids 5
Spoiler:
I cannot win this turn, so I don't bother landing my flyrants. Well, all except one, the flyrant on my Objective #1.
With my shooting, I am finally able to clear the daemonettes on my Objective #3. I also shoot down some of the pink horrors on Objective #2 but it is not enough to take them off.
Daemons 5
Spoiler:
Alan splits off his FMC's and some of them land on objectives.
To add insult to injury from the Chaos gods, the Warp Storm turns one of my flyrants into a Daemon Herald.
The game ends. Alan has me dominated both on the Scouring Primary as well as the Maelstrom Secondary. He achieves all 3 of the bonus Tertiary objectives, killing my Warlord, killing one of my most expensive units (flyrant) and also achieving Linebreaker with his D-thirster.
I only get 1-pt with both of my mawlocs in his deployment zone for Linebreaker. Daemons win 11-1.
Alan just flat-out out-played me this game. I should have known better than to try the Master of Ambush alpha-strike tactic against such an experienced general as Alan and in such a densely populated table terrain-wise. He basically did to me what I have done to some of my other Master of Ambush opponents who went first. A great counter-deployment plus good terrain on the table basically shut down my strategy hard. I then changed my strategy to try to win by going after the Maelstrom objectives, but alas, I couldn't draw (or roll) the objectives that I needed. Alan's tactics combined with the dice not cooperating with me became a mountain that I just couldn't climb over. After this game, Alan went on to play against Brett "Tomb King" Perkins and to eventually win his 3rd GT in a row. Congratulations, Alan, on a job very well done.
My next and final opponent was one that I was totally not expecting - Khorne Daemonkin! Whoa....say what? Yes, Daemonkin! My opponent for the next game going into the match is actually undefeated with a 3-win/1-draw record. Hmmm....I am definitely intrigued.
It seems like some Ravenwing Typhoons in the support squadron would do a number on the Mawlocks. Do they have a rule that gets around interceptor fire somehow? I'm not very familiar with them.
Silverthorne wrote: It seems like some Ravenwing Typhoons in the support squadron would do a number on the Mawlocks. Do they have a rule that gets around interceptor fire somehow? I'm not very familiar with them.
Sorry for the delay guys. Game #4 will be out today.
Xaereth wrote: Great reports , Jim! Just as I remembered
I haven't played 40k for like a year and a half, but have been thinking of getting back into it. You better believe I'll be reading your stuff to learn the competitive meta again. Not sure if it's already too late to get in on LVO, but that would probably be my goal, if I can afford to go to any big tournaments any time soon.
Lol, it would just be nice to roll some dice - I haven't played ANY miniatures game since October...
Why isn't your battle report thread updated for 2015? I doubt this is the first tournament/game you've written a report for this year.
You can still make it to the LVO. Tickets aren't out for sale yet, but they will be out very soon. Also, while tickets haven't been out yet, hotel rooms are already 55% booked (at the time of my response). Better book it first if you are sure you can make it. Otherwise, they'll probably be gone in a month.
I haven't updated my 7E BR Link because I took a break from writing for a while. I have only wrote 1 report since February, but I will update it soon enough.
And awesome event, Reece! The BAO and LVO are my 2 must-go tournaments of the year.
Silverthorne wrote: It seems like some Ravenwing Typhoons in the support squadron would do a number on the Mawlocks. Do they have a rule that gets around interceptor fire somehow? I'm not very familiar with them.
Mawloc hits are calculated before Interceptor occurs. Thus, this is usually what happens. Mawloc comes up, kills stuff (if he hits directly), then there is a good chance that he will mishap and possibly go back into reserves. If he is misplaced, then he is most likely dead if going up against Ravenwing and the Darkshroud formation.
However, don't forget that the land speeders have a forward firing arc. They can only intercept units coming in from reserves in the forward arcs. Thus, if the Tyranid player really wants to avoid RW interceptor, then he can have his mawloc come up on a unit that is not in the Typhoon's front facing. Of course if he mishaps and gets misplaced, then you can always put him into their interceptor arc.
There is so much Belakor shannigans here in the Chicagoland area that I have trouble NOT putting in 3 Stalkers in every list just to shoot Belakor down.
I too cannot wait. That 5th player is a friend of mine and I really enjoyed playing with him before he moved. Great guy, great opponent and generally really enjoyable to spend a game with.
That said, dude knows his stuff and will wreck you pretty bad with some very interesting lists. Unless the Fireball whiskey is out, then it's a toss up whether it'll be the fireball or his daemons that'll beat you. I still remember that headache...
BTW, the Tyranid terrain in my Game #4 against Alan was terrain that Frontline Gaming custom-built for a customer of theirs. If you are interested in terrain by Frontline, you can always contact them here:
DarthDiggler wrote: There is so much Belakor shannigans here in the Chicagoland area that I have trouble NOT putting in 3 Stalkers in every list just to shoot Belakor down.
I myself run Be'lakor. It just took me a while to try to get to him due to my flyrants having to turn around.
And while I brought a decent amount of ignore cover offense because of Ravenwing (mawlocs, egrubs), Tyranids just do not have an answer to flying 2+ cover other than sheer VoF, vector strikes and, if you're lucky, successfully casting Psychic Scream against units that are denying on 4+'s and with a lot more dispel dice than you have power dice.
Spartan089 wrote: How do most armies compete against that ridiculousness that is daemons? Great games man, keep up the awesome write ups.
Thanks.
Not much you can do when Daemons are rolling well. However, what hurts daemons the most is their own dice. All it takes is just 1 failed Grimoire at a crucial time or not being able to get your psychic powers off consistently or getting bad gifts or a bad Warp Storm result at an inopportune time. If Daemons can roll consistently, then they may perhaps be one of the hardest armies to play against. However, in a 5-7 game series such as a GT, they are bound to have bad rolls at times. That's what usually kills them - their own dice.
Or you could run Skyfire Tau with a lot of markerlights and cover ignoring firepower.
Dozer Blades wrote: Can't wait to see the final batrep - that was a rough matchup but you did the best you could.
Thanks. Honestly, I felt that I could have played better, but I was just rusty against Daemons.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
deathmagiks wrote: I too cannot wait. That 5th player is a friend of mine and I really enjoyed playing with him before he moved. Great guy, great opponent and generally really enjoyable to spend a game with.
That said, dude knows his stuff and will wreck you pretty bad with some very interesting lists. Unless the Fireball whiskey is out, then it's a toss up whether it'll be the fireball or his daemons that'll beat you. I still remember that headache...
LOL!
Yeah, he was an awesome guy. Played through most of the tournament buzzed as well. He was joking with me that he was drinking his way to victory. Next time, I might have to steal that idea from him.
Though I don't have the issue, I do recall seeing the BT's in White Dwarf before the Daemonkin book came out.
Besides, I doubt that after winning 2 previous GT's that no one would have caught any mistakes in his list (though his 2 previous lists were orks-daemons, his main army was basically daemons).
Here is how I see it Jim - you played your list the best you could and made an excellent run... but Nidz are just not competitive enough to go up against a top tier army like daemons. To me daemons are the number one most competitive army for too many reasons to list. Maybe had your luck been different you could have avoided Alan until the final round but oh well thems the breaks. I think you did really awesome with an army you love. Not to change the subject but I can't wait to see you play another army besides Nidz and Cronz.
Wow, that was an absolutely brutal game. Tough loss JY2. Though I will say you are an equally good loser as you are a gracious winner.
Looking forward to the next battle rep. I've never actually played against Khorne Daemonkin, so I'm interested in seeing them in a competitive setting.
Dozer Blades wrote: Here is how I see it Jim - you played your list the best you could and made an excellent run... but Nidz are just not competitive enough to go up against a top tier army like daemons. To me daemons are the number one most competitive army for too many reasons to list. Maybe had your luck been different you could have avoided Alan until the final round but oh well thems the breaks. I think you did really awesome with an army you love. Not to change the subject but I can't wait to see you play another army besides Nidz and Cronz.
I believe that nids can compete with Daemons. Give me 2nd turn and I will guarantee you the results would have been completely different (not to imply that I would have won, but my chances would have increased dramatically). I just should have known better that my opponent would have the know-how to counter-deploy against my strategy.
Freytag93 wrote: Wow, that was an absolutely brutal game. Tough loss JY2. Though I will say you are an equally good loser as you are a gracious winner.
Looking forward to the next battle rep. I've never actually played against Khorne Daemonkin, so I'm interested in seeing them in a competitive setting.
Thanks. I like to give credit where credit is due. Alan played like a champ.
Will start the last game later today.
Cieged wrote: As always, thanks for posting your pictures and experiences! Very interesting reads.
If you really need to go first or second versus certain armies that shows an inherent weakness - it is certainly not something you can or should count on.
A good army has the flexibility to go 1st or 2nd. However, it is indisputable that in the ITC format, there is an inherent advantage for most armies going 2nd. Really, whoever went 2nd in this game, whether Alan or me, had an inherent advantage, never mind the army. This goes beyond the army.
jy2 wrote: A good army has the flexibility to go 1st or 2nd. However, it is indisputable that in the ITC format, there is an inherent advantage for most armies going 2nd. Really, whoever went 2nd in this game, whether Alan or me, had an inherent advantage, never mind the army. This goes beyond the army.
Using any mission type that revolves around end of game objectives has this issue. It's a good reason that Maelstrom missions, in theory, are superior.
Every mission that is "hold an objective at the end of the game" plays out exactly the same; it's just "kill whatever you can for 5 turns, then go stand on a thing".
Sometimes going first is more advantageous even for the ITC mission format... Obviously this was not the case. One example is the need to get your psychic buffs up if you're up against army like drop pod Space Marines with the Skyhammer formation.
jy2 wrote: A good army has the flexibility to go 1st or 2nd. However, it is indisputable that in the ITC format, there is an inherent advantage for most armies going 2nd. Really, whoever went 2nd in this game, whether Alan or me, had an inherent advantage, never mind the army. This goes beyond the army.
Using any mission type that revolves around end of game objectives has this issue. It's a good reason that Maelstrom missions, in theory, are superior.
Every mission that is "hold an objective at the end of the game" plays out exactly the same; it's just "kill whatever you can for 5 turns, then go stand on a thing".
Exactly, and in the ITC format, even the Maelstroms are scored at the end of the game turn.
Dozer Blades wrote: Sometimes going first is more advantageous even for the ITC mission format... Obviously this was not the case. One example is the need to get your psychic buffs up if you're up against army like drop pod Space Marines with the Skyhammer formation.
Yes, sometimes it is. If you were going up against a good alpha-strike army with the potential to cripple you, then that is when you should consider going 1st for certain armies (especially the armies that rely on flying or psychic buffs).
However, my army isn't like that. When I designed it, I designed it with going 2nd and still surviving an alpha-strike in mind. I actually played against a Skyhammer list in another tournament with the exact same Tyranid army. He had 2x10 devastators with 8 grav-cannons and 2x3 grav-centurions in drop pods for a super nasty alpha-strike army. So what did I do? I won initiative and then chose to go 2nd.
I then deploy nothing but my mucolids and spores.
At the end of the game, I scored 11-1 and lost only a single mawloc.
In my game against Alan, I got greedy with thoughts of crippling his army with a T1 Tyranid alpha-strike. What I should have done instead was to opt to go 2nd and play to the objectives instead.
That's usually true. The game wasn't lost by me going 1st, though it did become a more uphill battle for me.
However, I'm upset with myself because when you are going up against a championship-caliber player (especially one that has won multiple GT's), you've got to assume that he would know how to play/deploy against a MoA opponent going 1st. I wasn't thinking logically. I only had visions of a dead Be'lakor or Fateweaver in my mind.
I admit that when I first saw Jon's army, I was somewhat caught by surprise. What? Daemonkin at the top tables? And undefeated?!? At the time Jon (aka Prophet40K here on dakka) was 3-wins 1-draw (his 1 draw coming against my own teammate, Mr.MoreTanks). Now I don't know anything about my opponent, other than he was a jovial guy who liked to drink (first thing he did was to offer me a beer ). Jon also told me that he didn't like to make decisions, which was why he chose Khorne Daemonkin. With that army, there isn't many decisions to make....just rush forwards and charge! But can that strategy actually work against an army like mine? Admittedly, just looking at his army, I already was starting to feel bad for what I was going to do it.
1. Hold Maelstrom Objective 1.
2. Hold Maelstrom Objective 2.
3. Destroy an enemy unit.
4. Destroy an enemy unit.
5. Have a scoring unit at least partially within the enemy deployment zone.
6. Have at least 3 of your scoring units and no enemy scoring units at least partially within your own deployment zone.
Tertiary Objectives: First Blood, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, 1-pt each
Even before the tournament, here are my thoughts on Daemonkin....they aren't competitive. And I say that as someone who runs Daemonkin also. So why aren't they competitive in my opinion? First of all, they are a 1-dimensional army based just on assault. They've got no shooting. But there are assault armies out there that do well. For instance, daemons. However, what sets Daemons apart from Daemonkin? The layers and layers of power-stacking. Daemons have the Grimoire and tons of psychic buffs as well as Daemonic Gifts to make their assault units resilient enough to make it into combat and then to also survive in combat. Daemonkin? Nothing, other than FNP from the Blood table. At least with my Daemonkin, I bring in Daemons to help with their Resiliency (Be'lakor and a Grimoire D-thirster). Jon didn't have any of that in his army. It was just mainly a somewhat fluffy Khorne army that wasn't built on power-stacking shenanigans.
Immediately, I just started feeling bad for his army. This was a total mismatch. I've got flyrants. Other than the fire raptor (and vector-strikes from his thirster), he has no ways to deal with them. He's got mass walkers. My flyrants with their haywire templates and S6 shots can easily deal with them. His bloodthirster is going to die as soon as I decide to focus on him (he isn't a threat to my army in my opinion). His void shield generator (VSG) is going to be useless as my flyrants can easily get inside their range. The only thing Jon has got going for him is that he is going 2nd. With his assault units, I'd be reluctant to land my flyrants. Thus, Jon will have a slight advantage in the Maelstrom objectives. Other than that, my intent is to go for the table. At least I don't think that Jon will take it too hard when I beat his army to a pulp. 1) He's playing Khorne...they're meant to destroy or be destroyed and 2) looks like he's here more for the dice rolling and beer drinking than for the actual winning/losing. Which is cool. I'm all for that.
Thanks to Jon, I will add his commentary to this report.
My Warlord Trait is the -1 to my opponent's Reserves (which, IMO, will actually helps my opponent).
My psychic powers include a few Catalysts, a couple of Warp Blasts and other powers.
I deploy my flyrants directly across from his VSG (Void Shield Generator).
Everything else, I leave in Reserves.
Jon deploys 4 maulerfiends up front as well as his D-thirster (the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage). He makes sure to spread out his maulerfiends.
He also deploys 1 maulerfiend to the very right flank (right flank from my perspective).
Jon: I would like to share my thought process of our game as it played out.
Objective placement: this to me is where many of players lose their games. I knew I had to place objectives in areas I knew my army could get to with relative ease. So I opted for a strong centerish placing. The #1 in the ruins roughly 30"x6" from my right, and then one almost dead center of the table.
My thinking was that I could claim #1 at any time due to reserves walking on with LOS protection (in hind sight, and after learning what mawlocks do to things on the ground I would have placed it on the upper level and followed suit with the units).
#2 I placed this one in a way that I thought that if you wanted to contest it you would have to hang back and thereby affording the rest of my army some measure of protection in the form of void shields.
Deployment and first turn. I felt I definitely didn't want to have to go first, if I did I would have been at a tremendous disadvantage. Any time I brought on reserves as you could pick them off one at a time. Quite literally like shooting demons in a barrel. If you went first I could place reserves in such a way that I might force your guys into glide mode so you could maximize shots. Your warlord trait of -1 to my reserve rolls further enforced my thoughts on this.
I noted during your deployment that you deployed in a "Blitz" formation in the center but left both your objectives wide open. So I put my mauler without lasher tendrils on the left board edge, I figured you would have to dedicate at least 2 rounds of movement to deal with him. Hopefully allowing him to net me some maelstrom points. I had decided that I was likely going to be tabled as well, so putting him there also meant precious time. Daemonkin are late game performers so I knew the more time I had the better.
Tyranids fly forwards. I land one of my flyrants to grab one of my Maelstrom objectives.
My shooting takes out 2 maulerfiends, nabbing me First Blood.
Daemonkin 1
Spoiler:
Thirster vector-strikes one of my flyrants. Maulerfiends move up.
His other maulerfiend all the way to my right goes and grab his Maelstrom objective #2 as well.
No shooting.
He tries a long 10-11" charge against my flyrant but fails. His maulerfiend then takes 2HP of damage from Egrub Overwatch.
That is another "secret" weapon of mine. Let his maulerfiends charge and take D3 Haywire hits. I will then Smash with my flyrant to try to take off the last HP.
I believe we both get 1 Maelstrom objective this turn.
Jon: Turn 1. Shock an Awe, when you moved all your flyrants INSIDE the vsg I thought ... "lol man I better prepare to get wrecked", but with some lucky demonic saves I managed to tank enough of the wounds, and save my infantry.
On my turn I vector struck your warlord, then took a chance and moved a mauler in such a way that if you wanted rear armor on him you'd have to move in to another vector path for my thirster. A risky play as it meant that you'd have to take the bait, AND that my BT would have to live. Lucky for me you did indeed head that way, and the BT lived. I ran the mauler up the left side to claim #2 and spent the rest of the turn basically trying to spread out so you'd have to work to table me.
Tyranids 2
Spoiler:
Only 1 mawloc comes in and he lands directly underneath the Possessed (with the Warpsmith). I hit most of them (and I hit them twice!!) but Khorne is with them today as they make a ton of 5++ saves. I only end up killing 3. My mawloc then mishaps and I roll a on the Mishap chart, thus killing my mawloc.
Flyrants move in all directions. I land one of my flyrants on Objective #2 because it is one of my Maelstrom objectives again. (I don't need to worry about assault from his D-thirster as it is in the air.)
In the shooting phase, I take out another 2 maulerfiends once again. However, the damaged maulerfiend to the right (the one with only 1HP left) took both flyrants just to kill him.
Daemonkin 2
Spoiler:
With his Blood points, Jon summons a unit of bloodcrushers. He also gives his Slaughtercult units FNP.
Warlord with bloodletters come in. The fire raptor does not.
BT goes to vector-strike my Warlord once again.
Maulerfiend goes to grab Objective #1. He also gets into my deployment zone for another Maelstrom objective.
Warpsmith and the Possessed then make the charge against my flyrant. He actually does 3W to my flyrant and I believe I only kill 1 Possessed in return. More importantly, he is contesting one of my Maelstrom objectives.
On this turn, Jon pulls ahead on the Maelstroms by 1.
Jon: Turn 2. You landed one of your flyrants to gain center #2, and roughed up some maulers. I think killing Horns ( the Bait), did 2hp to the last center mauler, and the BT took some wounds.
My turn 2 saw me summoning some crushers which I placed on the left side. my warlord came in with a unit of bls and I panicked as I remembered I didn't attach him to anyone during deployment. Amazingly due to perfect deep striking I was able to attach him to the unit. I was crushed when the fire raptor didn't come in.
I knew it was a long shot but I couldn't ignore a gliding tyrant so moved both of my units that could threaten him into assault range. I moved the mauler on the left up to claim your #1. After declaring the mauler as the first assaulter I almost flipped the table at my stupidity when you said "I get D3 haywire shots" then follow up with a 3!! I would love to have seen the look on my face at that... LOL. This bold move of mine went from long shot to "Oh well at least I get blood tithes." After the assault I was amazed that I had only lost 1 possessed.
Tyranids 3
Spoiler:
All of my mawlocs come in.
2 units of mawlocs hit the Herald's (his Warlord) unit and wipe out the bloodletters (but his Warlord still lives). Both of them mishaps back into Reserves.
The 3rd mawloc comes up and then runs into Jon's deployment zone to fulfill one of my Maelstrom objectives (get a unit within 12" of my opponent's deployment edge).
I move 2 flyrants to deal with his D-thirster. I shoot him down with 1 flyrant (he was already wounded) and my Warlord then runs off the table. We then remember about FNP. So Jon takes his FNP saves and I am forced to keep my Warlord on the table to finish him off.
My 3rd flyrant turns around and goes after his Warlord. I easily achieve Slay the Warlord.
The 4th flyrant heads over to my right flank (with his crushers and last maulerfiend) and then runs.
Jon gets his first actual kill of the game (not counting my mawloc who died from the mishap).
Daemonkin 3
Spoiler:
Fire raptor comes in and goes after my Warlord.
Jon summons a unit of Flesh Hounds with his Blood points as well as give his army FNP again.
His last unit of bloodletters come in but they mishap. I then put them into the right corner of Jon's deployment zone.
Daemonkin movement to the right.
Warpsmith goes after the mawloc.
He is able to shoot down my Warlord because 1) I failed to cast Catalyst last turn and 2) I couldn't make a jink save. Jon gets Slay the Warlord as well.
Maulerfiend assaults the mucolid and then consolidates such that his rear is covered by the ruins.
Lastly, the Warpsmith charges the mawloc.
I kill 1 possessed and they cause 2W in return.
Mawloc then Hit-&-runs out of combat.
At this point, I believe Jon is still ahead on the Maelstrom objectives by 1. Jon is also making somewhat of a comeback after killing 2 of my flyrants (and the mawloc which was killed by the mishap). But he is still behind after losing 4 maulerfiends, the D-thirster, his Warlord and 1 unit of bloodletters.
Jon: Turn 3. ( Things get really fuzzy around this point, I really should have slowed with the beer.) You killed my BT but had to keep your wl on the table thanks to the fnp. My possessed and warpsmith did the nearly impossible and took out the tyrant in melee. You only had 2 hits and I think rolled 2 1's to wound. You kill my wl and bls with those brutal mawlocs.
My side of turn 3 I summoned some flesh hounds. Then my reserve rolls only saw the fire raptor and one unit of bls come on. The bls mishap and you make them sit in the corner of shame (priceless btw). I bring in the raptor and hunt your warlord. I am pretty low on blood tithes so I charge some of your mines and decide that my Warpsmith is a ninja and can kill a mawlock, which surprisingly they won combat and did some damage. Not sure if I made saves, fnps or you didnt hit. but the hit and run out spelled the end of them.
Tyranids 4
Spoiler:
My 2 mawlocs come in. However, they both scatter completely off-target (off of the Warpsmith's unit).
Damn. I was planning on sending my flyrants towards the right flank, but now I am going to have to keep them here in order to deal with his Warpsmith and the last Possessed.
Here is where I make probably my biggest mistake in the game. Instead of flying my far-left flyrant off the table, I put him in Glide mode so that I could turn him around to go after the Warpsmith's unit.
What I forgot, however, was his Void Shield Generator. The void shields stops my flyrant shooting cold.
Flyrant goes after the crushers.
My last flyrant goes after the newly-arrived flesh hounds. (I was actually moving him towards the right flank but the crushers were out of range, so I shot at the dogs instead.)
Jon makes some incredible saves. Overall, I only manage to cause 1 unsaved Wound to 1 crusher and no unsaved wounds to the flesh hounds this turn from my shooting.
Lastly, my mawloc assaults the Warpsmith and finishes off both the Warpsmith and Possessed.
Daemonkin 4
Spoiler:
Flesh hounds go after my mawloc(s).
Jon makes a mistake here. He still has 1 cultist in Reserves, which he rolls for and fails. However, as it is Turn 4, they should automatically come in. I didn't really pay enough attention so I didn't catch this mistake until next turn.
Because my flyrant is on the ground, his fire raptor goes into skimmer mode to make a 180 degree turn. (Had my flyrant flown off the table last turn, which was what I should have done, most likely his raptor would have flown off as well.)
Crushers move onto a Maelstrom objective. Bloodletters who mishapped last turn move and then run forwards.
Raptor shoots down another flyrant as I fail basically all of my 4+ cover saves.
Hounds then assault the mawloc and cause 3W to it. In return, my mawloc does no damage.
However, I do Hit-&-run out of combat.
Wow! What a turn-around. This turn, Jon's dice were absolutely hot and mine were ice-cold. I am still behind on the Maelstroms (by 1-2 points) as I haven't been able to stop Jon from claiming his Maelstroms. I am actually behind in the game currently, despite my decimation of Jon's army up to this point.
Jon: Turn 4. You put another flyrant on the ground, not sure why? I think to blast away the possessed. you move another flyrant to start hunting the mauler on the left. You warpblast him and I belligerently roll a 5++ (or it might have been a shot into cover?, either way it was a belligerent roll). You kill the possessed and the warpsmith.
My turn 4 I roll for reserves (and I still feel gakky about that) and only one squad of cultists come in. Raptor drops to hover and takes out a flyrant. I keep my mauler hiding in the ruins and run the crushers to claim #1. I charge the fleshounds into combat hoping to kill a mawloc. I do not. You hit and run out. then I consolidate towards #2, I think contesting it.
Tyranids 5
Spoiler:
Tyranid movement. l land my flyrant on Objective #1.
In the psychic phase, I am finally able to get off Warp Blast successfully and it blows up Jon's last maulerfiend.
NOOOO!!! I needed to wipe out his unit of crushers in order to have a chance. However, Jon's good fortune continues as he survives the shooting from my 2 flyrants.
I then double-assault his flesh hounds with both mawlocs. He does another 1W of damage to my red mawloc and I kill a puppy.
This is my last mistake of the game. I Hit-&-Run my mawloc out of combat to claim Objective #2 (because it is also one of my Maelstrom objectives). While that was a good move, I did it 1 turn too early. Should have waited until the end of Jon's turn before I got my mawloc out of combat.
The key here is that I needed to kill off his crushers but didn't. That will probably cost me the game. Over 2 turns and with 3 flyrants, I should have caused 18W of damage against them after saves. Instead, I only caused 7W.
Daemonkin 5
Spoiler:
Jon walks his cultist in and then runs them to capture his home objective over my flyrant (due to them being Objective Secured). It wasn't until the end of the game when I finally realized Jon's mistake.
Bloodletters and the lone crusher move towards the objectives.
Raptor shoots down my mawloc to deny me one of my objectives. This was my mistake here. Had I Hit-&-run this turn instead of last, my mawloc would have been alive and claiming the objective. I would have also had another Maelstrom point as well.
Finally, crusher runs to deny me Objective #1 as well as to grab Linebreaker.
Game ends due to time.
Jon: Turn 5, you charge the flesh hounds with a lot of stuff but they weather the storm. You cleverly only hit and run with one mawloc very strategically pulling me off #2. You shoot at the crushers and I make a staggering amount of saves, leaving one alive with 1 wound.
My turn five I move to claim/contest. The cheating cultists come on. ( Still feel way gakky about that.) The fire raptor kills the mawloc on #2.
Jon has the Maelstrom Secondary, winning by 1 or 2 points.
For the Primary, bloodletters are on an objective. His ObSec cultists have the objective over my flyrant and the last objective is contested by his crushers and my flyrant. Officially (what we turned in), Jon won the Primary 2-0.
Jon gets Warlord and Linebreaker (his lone crusher) for 2 bonus points. I get First Blood (maulerfiend), his Warlord and Linebreaker (flyrant, mawloc) for 3 bonus points.
Officially, Jon wins 10-3.
Unofficially, I would have been able to wipe out his cultists with my flyrant (and for added insurance, could have assaulted them with my spore mines) to claim his home objective. We would have tied on the Primary with 1 objective apiece. However, I still would have lost due to the Maelstrom Secondary. Now Jon was apologetic and offered to change the scores, but I told him that it was ok. It still would have been a lost for me anyways even had I got his home objective. Besides, I had a lot of fun that game and Jon was a very enjoyable opponent to play against.
I admit, that was a tough loss. It was actually a tougher loss than my game against Alan because I was really expecting to win this one. This loss also took me out of the running for the award of Best Tyranids (had I won it, I would have most likely won Best Tyranids). I was completely dominating Jon's Daemonkin initially but a couple of key mistakes and the dice turning on me in the later turns snatched Defeat from the jaws of Victory for me.
2 things really stand out this game to me:
1) Not being able to kill his crushers. This led to them contesting my objective as well as getting Linebreaker. Had I been able to kill them (and had we reversed the cultist situation), I would have won Primary.
2) Hit-&-run at the wrong time. Had I Hit-&-ran on my opponent's turn instead of mine (and had we reversed the cultist situation), I would have won Primary.
Winning Primary would have given me the win. If I take Primary and he takes Secondary, then I win from the Bonus Tertiary objectives. But since neither of the above happened, it didn't really matter to me whether we reversed the cultist situation or not. A loss is still a loss.
Jon ended up doing really well, being 1 of 5 players to go undefeated at the BAO (he ended up 4-0-1). He placed 5th overall and won the award for Best Chaos player.
I had a great time and had 5 great opponents. I finished 31st out of 134 players and was well short of my goal (Top 10 and Top Tyranid player). I'd especially like to thank Jon for ruining my hopes and dreams and for bribing me with beers, trying to get me drunk and then cheating and drinking his way to victory. HAHA! Just kidding, Jon. But seriously, Jon was a great opponent and I'd like to thank him for opening my eyes as to how good Daemonkin can be when played correctly.
Jon: My loose battle plan was to spread out and hopefully force you to glide so I could pull of some charges. I knew with us being this close to the top table, that you'd have to be aggressive. Especially because you couldn't afford to give up maelstrom.
Looking back. I think -1 to my reserve rolls helped me by simply allowing me not to be around for Mawloc lunch times.
Over all that was a great and challenging game. I felt every turn it was suspenseful and pretty tense, but in a fun way. I have had experience with several other 5 tyrant lists and usually they are jerks. I am still not sure how I pulled a W out of that, I'll use the words of Allen Dehesa my RQTF teammate "Man, Costa you are the only dude I know that can drink his way to victory."
I can't thank you enough for that enjoyable game, and I sincerely hope we get to cross blades again!
jy2 wrote: A good army has the flexibility to go 1st or 2nd. However, it is indisputable that in the ITC format, there is an inherent advantage for most armies going 2nd. Really, whoever went 2nd in this game, whether Alan or me, had an inherent advantage, never mind the army. This goes beyond the army.
Which has been my major complaint with ITC missions for some time along with a lack of alternating maelstrom from secondary to primary between matches. For some reason however, that major weakness in the otherwise solid system remains. It really baffles me considering the strongest balancing factor maelstrom brought with it was eliminating the strong advantage second turn gives in traditional bottom of turn scoring (whether end of game or turn) especially to FMC armies.
Not a knock against Jim but he seems to often rely upon going second like back in the day when he rocked Cronz... like I said a lot of it is psychological .
Just an opinion, but sometimes rolling with a pure RPS list can have as much success as taking a TAC list. I'm actually not sure if the latter even exists anymore.
He took a strong bullrush list; and unfortunately he hit the paper to his rock. But, that may not have been the case. He could have gotten lucky...
If his invulns are hot then all that haywire means jack. And devourors fish for 6's, shooting the one is actually terrible if he doesn't get rear armor. If he rolls objectives on maelstrom each turn and so does Jim then he will actually go ahead on secondary Then their is the case top be made that a fire raptor can theoretically ground four flyrants on the turn it arrives
I route for underdogs and always find myself wanting the arrogant guy to get a lesson in dice so despite agreeing with much of what Jim has said I kind of hope this game blows up a little
With that army, there isn't many decisions to make....just rush forwards and charge!
Even before the tournament, here are my thoughts on Daemonkin....they aren't competitive. And I say that as someone who runs Daemonkin also. So why aren't they competitive in my opinion? First of all, they are a 1-dimensional army based just on assault. They've got no shooting. But there are assault armies out there that do well. For instance, daemons. However, what sets Daemons apart from Daemonkin? The layers and layers of power-stacking. Daemons have the Grimoire and tons of psychic buffs as well as Daemonic Gifts to make their assault units resilient enough to make it into combat and then to also survive in combat. Daemonkin? Nothing, other than FNP from the Blood table. At least with my Daemonkin, I bring in Daemons to help with their Resiliency (Be'lakor and a Grimoire D-thirster). Jon didn't have any of that in his army. It was just mainly a somewhat fluffy Khorne army that wasn't built on power-stacking shenanigans.
The simpler the plan the less likely you are to screw it up. When you are an assault army that throws haymakers you only need one to connect to do some serious damage.
I like to think all of 1-Dimensional assault army players know exactly what it’s going to be like when we jump into a tournament. There’s something satisfying about walking up to the table with your army and your opponent knows exactly what your assault army is going to do yet is powerless to stop it. Of course playing against enough Nid players in my group I know just how annoying playing against a flyer heavy list is, but just have to get your objectives and kill anything that’s on the ground and fingers cross for some good saving rolls.
PS. You're on game 5 now in the game header, just a heads up. Look forward to seeing it play out.
jy2 wrote: A good army has the flexibility to go 1st or 2nd. However, it is indisputable that in the ITC format, there is an inherent advantage for most armies going 2nd. Really, whoever went 2nd in this game, whether Alan or me, had an inherent advantage, never mind the army. This goes beyond the army.
Which has been my major complaint with ITC missions for some time along with a lack of alternating maelstrom from secondary to primary between matches. For some reason however, that major weakness in the otherwise solid system remains. It really baffles me considering the strongest balancing factor maelstrom brought with it was eliminating the strong advantage second turn gives in traditional bottom of turn scoring (whether end of game or turn) especially to FMC armies.
The only change I would prefer is that Maelstrom objectives be scored at the end of each player turn.
Dozer Blades wrote: Not a knock against Jim but he seems to often rely upon going second like back in the day when he rocked Cronz... like I said a lot of it is psychological .
It's not me. It's the inherent "fault" in the system.
Just like if you're driving during traffic time and you have a friend in your car. You can choose not to use the carpool lane, but any "normal" person(s) who are trying to get to their destination on time will use it. You can't really fault them for doing so.
DorianGray wrote: Khorne is the most boring uninteresting chaos God. Destroy him!
Ironically, Khorne is my 2nd favorite god (behind the spell-casting God). There's just something about wanton destruction without care for strategy or one's own safety that appeals to me. It's a good contrast to the other armies that I normally play.
The Shrike wrote: Just an opinion, but sometimes rolling with a pure RPS list can have as much success as taking a TAC list. I'm actually not sure if the latter even exists anymore.
He took a strong bullrush list; and unfortunately he hit the paper to his rock. But, that may not have been the case. He could have gotten lucky...
I feel the same way, which is why I brought a RPS Tyranid in the first place. There's just no way you can have TAC army that can deal with all the competitive armies currently, so I thought to myself, why the heck bother trying? I'll just bring an extreme build myself and watch amusingly how others deal with my army.
Red Corsair wrote: If his invulns are hot then all that haywire means jack. And devourors fish for 6's, shooting the one is actually terrible if he doesn't get rear armor. If he rolls objectives on maelstrom each turn and so does Jim then he will actually go ahead on secondary Then their is the case top be made that a fire raptor can theoretically ground four flyrants on the turn it arrives
I route for underdogs and always find myself wanting the arrogant guy to get a lesson in dice so despite agreeing with much of what Jim has said I kind of hope this game blows up a little
Yeah, things could get "dicey" if he starts making his Invuln saves. Also, I always fear that the Maelstrom will give me crap objectives....but that is in every game, not just this one.
I also like to root for the underdog. In this case, I was actually rooting for my Jon in my heart, while at the same time, strategizing on how best to annihilate his army in my mind.
The simpler the plan the less likely you are to screw it up. When you are an assault army that throws haymakers you only need one to connect to do some serious damage.
I like to think all of 1-Dimensional assault army players know exactly what it’s going to be like when we jump into a tournament. There’s something satisfying about walking up to the table with your army and your opponent knows exactly what your assault army is going to do yet is powerless to stop it. Of course playing against enough Nid players in my group I know just how annoying playing against a flyer heavy list is, but just have to get your objectives and kill anything that’s on the ground and fingers cross for some good saving rolls.
PS. You're on game 5 now in the game header, just a heads up. Look forward to seeing it play out.
That is true. You (as in the players running pure assault armies) know you have bad matchups, and yet you still opt to jump into the ocean (tournament) with a devil-may-care attitude and hope for the best. That is something to be admired.
At the same time, these players aren't really looking to win tournaments. I think their persona is to just go to a tournament, roll dice and, whether they table someone or get tabled themselves, just have fun. They love their assault armies and will stick with it through thick and thin and despite what everyone else says.
And thanks for the heads up, I will change my header.
I am looking forward to the report. I am glad you enjoyed our game as much as I did.
Though truth be told I did a mental face palm as I walked up to the table and saw another flyrant list. My round four opponent was rocking four flyrants and a Barbed Hierodule!!
That game put my faith in Khorne to the test. My table-neighbor looked at the match up and said "Here you're going to need these more than I will" and handed me a bag of Jello shots. They must have pleased Khorne because I walked out 11-2.
Now looking at another list with MORE tyrants and MORE mawlocks, I said to myself. "Oh well looks like it's time for another beer. It'll take the sting out of this. LOL"
Yea that is rough playing the same build in back to back games. I think in my last couple tournaments I have played space marines in 95% of my games lol. Even when they are not the most dominant faction lol.
I hope you poured a shot for your homie (Khorne) before the game started
Prophet40k wrote: I am looking forward to the report. I am glad you enjoyed our game as much as I did.
Though truth be told I did a mental face palm as I walked up to the table and saw another flyrant list. My round four opponent was rocking four flyrants and a Barbed Hierodule!!
That game put my faith in Khorne to the test. My table-neighbor looked at the match up and said "Here you're going to need these more than I will" and handed me a bag of Jello shots. They must have pleased Khorne because I walked out 11-2.
Now looking at another list with MORE tyrants and MORE mawlocks, I said to myself. "Oh well looks like it's time for another beer. It'll take the sting out of this. LOL"
Thanks for the game, Jon, and thanks for your commentary as well.
I'd especially like to thank Jon for ruining my hopes and dreams and for bribing me with beers, trying to get me drunk and then cheating and drinking his way to victory.
I think I've just been bamboozled. His drinking was probably just a smokescreen for his superior, strategical intellect.
Either that or a form of self-handicap so he wouldn't blow us kiddies out of the water.
HAHA! I love it. I have been playing chaos for about as long as I can remember and guile and deception are huge factors in chaos battle plans.
Or It could be that I just enjoy the hobby , winning or losing doesn't really matter to me as long as both players are having fun. That attitude fits well with a Khorne list, if the patron god of my army doesn't care who dies, why should I?
I'd like to thank you for being such a great sportsman, all of my opponents at the BAO were great guys as a matter of fact. You have to walk a fine line when you bring brutal lists like ours, on one hand you want to win by the largest possible margin. On the other hand you have to make sure that both sides are enjoying the game. I have played far too many people lately that are only concerned about the check in the W column, they forget that we are playing a game that has more than one player. I know we have only played once but it was a game to remember that's for sure. You went out of your way to make sure I knew what was going on with dice rolls and rules explanations. Your army was beautiful, there was so much love put into the painting and conversions. it was truly a pleasure to face. I hope I face more players like you and the others I met at the BAO.
Jim, Great battle reports. Super entertaining and informative. I had an absolute blast at the BAO, I am looking forward to seeing you again at the LVO.
Budget and scheduling allowing I'll be there with a newer improved version of "Bloodied Iron".
I'd especially like to thank Jon for ruining my hopes and dreams and for bribing me with beers, trying to get me drunk and then cheating and drinking his way to victory.
I think I've just been bamboozled. His drinking was probably just a smokescreen for his superior, strategical intellect.
Either that or a form of self-handicap so he wouldn't blow us kiddies out of the water.
HAHA! I love it. I have been playing chaos for about as long as I can remember and guile and deception are huge factors in chaos battle plans.
Or It could be that I just enjoy the hobby , winning or losing doesn't really matter to me as long as both players are having fun. That attitude fits well with a Khorne list, if the patron god of my army doesn't care who dies, why should I?
I'd like to thank you for being such a great sportsman, all of my opponents at the BAO were great guys as a matter of fact. You have to walk a fine line when you bring brutal lists like ours, on one hand you want to win by the largest possible margin. On the other hand you have to make sure that both sides are enjoying the game. I have played far too many people lately that are only concerned about the check in the W column, they forget that we are playing a game that has more than one player. I know we have only played once but it was a game to remember that's for sure. You went out of your way to make sure I knew what was going on with dice rolls and rules explanations. Your army was beautiful, there was so much love put into the painting and conversions. it was truly a pleasure to face. I hope I face more players like you and the others I met at the BAO.
Jim, Great battle reports. Super entertaining and informative. I had an absolute blast at the BAO, I am looking forward to seeing you again at the LVO.
Budget and scheduling allowing I'll be there with a newer improved version of "Bloodied Iron".
Thanks for all the positive comments!
Blood For the Blood GOD!!!!
Praise Khorne!!!
Thanks for the game, Jon, and also thanks for contributing to my report. It's refreshing IMO for the readers to also get the viewpoint of my opponents.
You taught me a thing or two, like how nasty the fire raptor could be and how I should bring a cooler of beer to my next GT (gotta steal that idea from you).
I'd especially like to thank Jon for ruining my hopes and dreams and for bribing me with beers, trying to get me drunk and then cheating and drinking his way to victory.
I think I've just been bamboozled. His drinking was probably just a smokescreen for his superior, strategical intellect.
Either that or a form of self-handicap so he wouldn't blow us kiddies out of the water.
HAHA! I love it. I have been playing chaos for about as long as I can remember and guile and deception are huge factors in chaos battle plans.
Or It could be that I just enjoy the hobby , winning or losing doesn't really matter to me as long as both players are having fun. That attitude fits well with a Khorne list, if the patron god of my army doesn't care who dies, why should I?
I'd like to thank you for being such a great sportsman, all of my opponents at the BAO were great guys as a matter of fact. You have to walk a fine line when you bring brutal lists like ours, on one hand you want to win by the largest possible margin. On the other hand you have to make sure that both sides are enjoying the game. I have played far too many people lately that are only concerned about the check in the W column, they forget that we are playing a game that has more than one player. I know we have only played once but it was a game to remember that's for sure. You went out of your way to make sure I knew what was going on with dice rolls and rules explanations. Your army was beautiful, there was so much love put into the painting and conversions. it was truly a pleasure to face. I hope I face more players like you and the others I met at the BAO.
Jim, Great battle reports. Super entertaining and informative. I had an absolute blast at the BAO, I am looking forward to seeing you again at the LVO.
Budget and scheduling allowing I'll be there with a newer improved version of "Bloodied Iron".
I'd especially like to thank Jon for ruining my hopes and dreams and for bribing me with beers, trying to get me drunk and then cheating and drinking his way to victory.
I think I've just been bamboozled. His drinking was probably just a smokescreen for his superior, strategical intellect.
Either that or a form of self-handicap so he wouldn't blow us kiddies out of the water.
HAHA! I love it. I have been playing chaos for about as long as I can remember and guile and deception are huge factors in chaos battle plans.
Or It could be that I just enjoy the hobby , winning or losing doesn't really matter to me as long as both players are having fun. That attitude fits well with a Khorne list, if the patron god of my army doesn't care who dies, why should I?
I'd like to thank you for being such a great sportsman, all of my opponents at the BAO were great guys as a matter of fact. You have to walk a fine line when you bring brutal lists like ours, on one hand you want to win by the largest possible margin. On the other hand you have to make sure that both sides are enjoying the game. I have played far too many people lately that are only concerned about the check in the W column, they forget that we are playing a game that has more than one player. I know we have only played once but it was a game to remember that's for sure. You went out of your way to make sure I knew what was going on with dice rolls and rules explanations. Your army was beautiful, there was so much love put into the painting and conversions. it was truly a pleasure to face. I hope I face more players like you and the others I met at the BAO.
Jim, Great battle reports. Super entertaining and informative. I had an absolute blast at the BAO, I am looking forward to seeing you again at the LVO.
Budget and scheduling allowing I'll be there with a newer improved version of "Bloodied Iron".
Eldercaveman wrote: I'm just curious how it managed to drop a tyrant whilst snap firing, assuming he jinked as well?
My flyrant was on the ground as well. I put him in glide mode in order to turn him around. My opponent then did the same thing with his flyer.
I never shot at his flyer so he never jinked.
Ah makes more sense now.
Yeah, it was one of my bigger mistakes in the game. I forgot about his VSG. Should have just flown my flyrant off the table instead. Then he could have came in on the right flank to deal with those crushers and maulerfiend as well.
I'd especially like to thank Jon for ruining my hopes and dreams and for bribing me with beers, trying to get me drunk and then cheating and drinking his way to victory.
I think I've just been bamboozled. His drinking was probably just a smokescreen for his superior, strategical intellect.
Either that or a form of self-handicap so he wouldn't blow us kiddies out of the water.
HAHA! I love it. I have been playing chaos for about as long as I can remember and guile and deception are huge factors in chaos battle plans.
Or It could be that I just enjoy the hobby , winning or losing doesn't really matter to me as long as both players are having fun. That attitude fits well with a Khorne list, if the patron god of my army doesn't care who dies, why should I?
I'd like to thank you for being such a great sportsman, all of my opponents at the BAO were great guys as a matter of fact. You have to walk a fine line when you bring brutal lists like ours, on one hand you want to win by the largest possible margin. On the other hand you have to make sure that both sides are enjoying the game. I have played far too many people lately that are only concerned about the check in the W column, they forget that we are playing a game that has more than one player. I know we have only played once but it was a game to remember that's for sure. You went out of your way to make sure I knew what was going on with dice rolls and rules explanations. Your army was beautiful, there was so much love put into the painting and conversions. it was truly a pleasure to face. I hope I face more players like you and the others I met at the BAO.
Jim, Great battle reports. Super entertaining and informative. I had an absolute blast at the BAO, I am looking forward to seeing you again at the LVO.
Budget and scheduling allowing I'll be there with a newer improved version of "Bloodied Iron".
Thanks for all the positive comments!
Blood For the Blood GOD!!!!
Praise Khorne!!!
You and your god damn 5++ saves...
I take it you know Jon?
Yeah he and I used to play at his place in San Diego all the time. One of my favorite opponents and someone who I wouldn't hesitate to call a friend. But those damn 5++ saves of his are like his drinking: Shouldn't. Be. Possible.
Sometimes you look at a cute, kitty cat and you think he is all harmless and stuff. But what you don't see are his sharp, sharp claws, his cat-like reflexes and his killer instincts.
ibushi wrote: Fabulous reports Jim, thanks for sharing and adding in your valuable tactical insights.
That last game was definitely my favourite, between the armies, personalities, and result -- quite unexpected!
Really look forward to more batreps, and hopefully more daemonkin too haha.
Maybe see you at TSHFT this month?
Cheers
Ibushi
Thanks!
Yeah, the last game was great and also a bit of a surprise. Now not counting generalship (I had no idea what the skill level of my opponent was), I just didn't think his army had the tools to beat mine. But as a Daemonkin player myself, it's good to know that such an army can compete against even the more hardcore armies like mine.
I won't be going to TSHFT this month (taking vacation time for NOVA), but I do plan on going to TSHFT early next year.
deathmagiks wrote: Yeah he and I used to play at his place in San Diego all the time. One of my favorite opponents and someone who I wouldn't hesitate to call a friend. But those damn 5++ saves of his are like his drinking: Shouldn't. Be. Possible.
Awesome. Even though he's gone to the Midwest, you're lucky down in SD. There's no shortage of good players there, including the guys from Frontline Gaming and many, many others.
Are you getting paid by the forge world people to advertise Fire Raptors? Shoot I think I'll buy two. Cheaper (points wise) than a tooled command squad and master, and way more vicious on the table.
You can't expend blood tithe points for two rewards, can you?
I think you lose your extra blood tithes points if you select a reward that doesn't fill your pool. Am I wrong? it may be a mistranlation in french.
Only the charne cohort allows you to select another one.
jackyratos wrote: You can't expend blood tithe points for two rewards, can you?
I think you lose your extra blood tithes points if you select a reward that doesn't fill your pool. Am I wrong? it may be a mistranlation in french.
Only the charne cohort allows you to select another one.
The slaughtercult detachment has a rule that gives you an extra result from the 1-4 part of the chart if you select 5-8 but it only affects the slaughter cult (so in this case everything but the maulerfiends and maybe the thirster depending on how he took it).
Doh! I thought it was the charnel cohort that as this rule and the slaughter cullt only gives you an extra point per turn (+ warlord trait reroll). I don'thave my codex with me now.
Thx
on the Destroyer table to take him out.
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