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Hey folks!

You can see my other two battle reports here:
Round Two
Round Three

Primarch told me about an RTT in Atlanta and told me that I should come - with a sister-in-law two hours away with a new baby that my wife was itching to visit, I thought it was a good time to get two birds with one stone. 40k + happy wife = win!

I drove 9 hours to the inlaw's house, and another 2.5 hours to get to the RTT - 11.5 hours of driving to get to the RTT (and another 9 hours tomorrow to go home) might seem a bit much (and it is) but I was informed that the competition is always stiff, and usually GT sized. Anything that gets me out of BFE eastern NC to get exposure to a wider 40k crowd is welcome to me, so I showed up!

My first round opponent brought Chaos Demons! I haven't played against them in a real long time - I made a point of asking about flamers (of which he had no flamers of Tzeentch).

Dashofpepper's Pink Waaaugh!

HQ1: Ghazghkull Thraka
HQ2: Big Mek with Kustom Force Field, Powerklaw, Grot Oiler

Troop1: 7 diversified nobs (cybork bodies, painboy, 3 kombi-rokkits) in Battlewagon
Troop2: 16 Boyz + Nob/PK
Troop3: 11 Boyz + Nob/PK/Bosspole
Troop4: 10 Gretchin+Runtherder

Elite1: 15 Burnas Boyz (in battlewagon with Burnas)
Elite2: 5 Lootas
Elite3: 5 Lootas

Fast Attack1: Deffkopta with TL Rokkits + Buzzsaw
Fast Attack2: Deffkopta with TL Rokkits + Buzzsaw
Fast Attack3: 3x Warbuggies with TL Rokkits

Heavy1: Battlewagon, DeffRolla, Big Shoota, Grabbin' Klaw, Boarding Plank, Armor Plates
Heavy2: Battlewagon, DeffRolla, Big Shoota, Grabbin' Klaw, Boarding Plank, Armor Plates

Mark Pass' Chaos Daemons

HQ1: Bloodthirster, Blessings of the Blood God, Daemonic Flight
HQ2: Great Unclean One; Noxious Touch, DGN: CLous of Flies, FNP

Troop1: 4x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch(Bolt of Tzeentch) + The Changling (Warpfire, Glamour of Tzeentch)
Troop2: 5x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch(Bolt of Tzeentch)
Troop3: 5x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch(Bolt of Tzeentch)
Troop4: 5x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch(Bolt of Tzeentch)
Troop5: 8x Plaguebearers of Nurgle (Icon)

Elite1: 5x Bloodcrushers of Khorne
Elite2: 4x Bloodcrushers of Khorne
Elite3: 6x Fiends of Slaanesh

Heavy1: Soul Grinder with Harvest, Mawcannon, Vomit, Mawcannon, Tongue
Heavy2: Soul Grinder with Harvest, Mawcannon, Vomit, Mawcannon, Tongue
Heavy3: Soul Grinder with Harvest, Mawcannon, Vomit, Mawcannon, Tongue

Mission/Deployment
The game is a modified capture and control worth 30 points with spearhead deployment. Objectives are placed in the center of each of the two table quarters that are not deployment zones.

15 points: Control more objectives than your opponent.
10 points: Kill more of your opponent's non-scoring units.
5 points: Destroy your opponent's highest point cost unit while protecting your own.

My opponent won the roll to choose turn, and chose to deploy and go second. Being daemons, he wants to react to my deployment, and with him completely reserve, and deep striking onto the board piecemeal, I found the game frustrating as I ran around the board trying to respond to his spread out deep striking.

So…I deployed onto an empty table Both of my Lootas in cover, and I lined up my rokkit buggies and deffkoptas to get across the board quickly to either offer a distraction unit or to get in position to take the objective I wasn’t going to jump on. I left my gretchin in reserve.


This is not a crotch shot, this is a 3rd person shot of my deployment and the rest of the board.


Turn1 Movement – I jump 12” across the table towards the objective. I move my deffkopta and rokkit buggies carefully – I’m trying to prevent deep striking to my immediate rear and side; standard anti-melta tools that were useless because I’m playing against daemons. =p


My other deffkopta jumped into the middle of the board to get a turbo-boosting save, and to be positioned to do something useful. I'm thinking about the other objective here, and am trying to be positioned to assault whatever lands on it.


I have nothing to shoot at, so pass on turn1 to my opponent. Mark broke his army into two uneven halves - both HQs, all elites, two Heavy supports in one half, and his troop choices + 1 soul grinder in the other half. He gets the wrong half and his troops come onto the table. His plaguebearers drop onto the table and scatter into terrain, none die. This sort of marks the trend for the game - he doesn't get the units he wants, and doesn't get them where he wants them.


His first unit of horrors deepstrikes down by one of my Loota units - he's wary of them and over the next turn does some good work in negating them.


He brings the soul grinder and the other horror unit in, and mishaps the last horror unit - they go back into reserves and won't come on until turn3.


His filthy plaguebearers run gibbering down the hill towards my deffkopta in his shooting phase. I end up assaulting them with both deffkoptas in my following turn, and they literally spend 4 turns in close combat. They've got FNP so shooting at them feels useless, but on the flip side, the buzzsaws are I1, so he's always striking first. On the flip side of that, he's got invulnerable saves, but few attacks and needing 4+ to hit and 5+ to wound. Eventually over 3 full turns (6 player turns) my two deffkoptas will kill this unit at the cost of one deffkopta and a wound on the second.


Apologies for the blurry picture here - he drops all his bolts and stuff into the closest Loota squad, who mysteriously vanish from the board after taking enough fire to cause leadership and running off the board. There were other ork players here, and there was a debate about whether 5 Lootas should be in an army - I fall into the category of people who think that there should be 5 or 15 - I decided to use 5, although I have trouble with LOS blocking - my own wagons blocking LOS at what I need to shoot at; I'm not sure if this is the route I want to take yet. I think the next major event I play Orks in will be 'Ard Boyz, and we'll have a chance to revisit how I use those Lootas.


Top of Ork turn2: I zoom my wagons 12" up the table, rotate around so that I'm comfortably sitting on one objective, and move to protect my wagons. I'm new to using Deffrollas here, and between those, the minimum sized Loota squads, and the new addition of warbuggies, I'm using a list I'm not exactly familiar with the operation of - you can see from my deployment here that I'm trying to protect my rear from easy shots; maybe cause a mishap if he tries deep striking back there, and spacing out well enough that he can't get particularly close to my wagons.


I line up for shooting - My rokkit buggies weapon destroy his Soul Grinder and I remove his STR10 weapon, and my Lootas open up on a horror unit, and the horrors force me to turn on fire on my warbuggies instead, which is something I didn't know that they could do and I wasn't expecting. - fortunately for me, Ork shooting is poop and I whiff my shots and leave my warbuggies untouched. Both deffkoptas jump into combat with his plaguebearers to start their epic 6 player turn trek to completion.


Turn2 Chaos demon reserves. Mark whiffs EVERYTHING except for a soul grinder and his 5 unit of crushers. From not getting the half he wanted, and now not getting his big guns on the table. He puts the crushers inside non-scatter distance of his icon in the middle of the field. I'm not sure if he's aware of Ghazghkull's charge range or not, but that's what I'm thinking as he plops down there - he obviously wants to jump in and free up his plaguebearers from the deffkoptas. His soul grinder moves towards my buggies, and his horrors close in to find more targets to shoot at.



Meanwhile his other soul grinder is closing in on my war buggies, getting ready to assault in and beat on them. I had moved them 12", and while I haven't used war buggies before, I've had some discussions about them on the forums, and think that they're a great assault denial tool and fencing unit to keep things away from my battlewagons, or to shift enemy forces where I want them to go. I made those warbuggies from scratch; I have an extensive picture guide over in the painting section about how I made those.


He assaults into my warbuggies, and needing 6s to hit with an auto-penetrate he rolls one six and gets a weapon destroyed result. I've got one rokkit that won't be shooting the rest of the game.


Ork Turn3: My warbuggies dodge around the soul grinder to get some shots at the other while my boyz toting wagon rolls 12" forward rams, Deffrollas, survives a DoG attack with a stunned result (down to shaken from my armor plates) then explodes the soul grinder that was pestering me. Boyz pile out, eager to mix it up with those horrors - I'm planning on using my Waaaugh! here so I can get Ghazghkull into combat with the Bloodcrushers.


My deffkoptas are holding their own, but the tide is about to shift over there, so I send the burna wagon 12" over and dump Ghazghkull out to go help - I didn't realize that bloodcrushers were Eternal Warrior, so I'm a little worried after the first round of combat when Ghazghkull does poorly.


Back in another corner of the table, my gretchin have come out of reserve this turn, move up the field 6", and then assault into his horrors. Despite being puny, it appears that his horrors are *also* puny and hilarity ensues while we feebly swing at each other in combat. My gretchin WIN combat (largely due to my runtherder taking away 1 attack each from three of his horrors)


Ghazghkull brings the Waaaugh! and jumps into combat with the Bloodcrushers. He survives through their attacks with a failed wound and in return deals three wounds out of seven...of which two are saved with invul saves. My opponent had a wounded bloodletter from...Lootas I think, and the wound that Ghazghkull caused killed one, leaving us with tied combat.


My boyz clean up their target and consolidate towards cover (should have gone towards the objective!!) but I want to get cover from his horrors. It ultimately isn't going to help tremendously because he deep strikes a soul grinder next to them, hits on target, and then flamers and other bad things to them.


Ghazghkull rolls poorly and kills one (explained up above) Meanwhile, one deffkopta dies and the other remains stuck in combat.


Daemon Turn3: I thought that his rolls here deserved a picture of their own.



HIs fiends mishap! I get to place them anywhere on the table. I did what any ork player would do - I dropped them right next to the battlewagon full of burna boys and giggle to myself. He'll run them a couple inches during his shooting phase and spread them out a little bit, but I ended up deffrolla-ing into them and grouping them up again. He chose not to DoG me because I didn't hit the one with rending.


I had forgotten to unpack a runtherder, so a dead Loota was standing in - his big soulgrinder decided to come even the odds and get rid of my scoring unit sitting on the objective I wasn't controlling. He assaults in and kills...ONE GRETCHIN! Big whiff. I killed two horrors, and my freakin' awesome gretchin win combat against a unit of horrors and a soul grinder. 10 gretchin and a runtherder (down to 7 or so) win against a soul grinder and a horror unit. Ha.


The bottom half of the Waaaugh! finds us with fewer bloodcrushers than the previous turn. I'm grateful that Ghazghkull didn't whiff this time, and Ghazghkull kills one, wins combat, and he loses a second to his fearless saves.


Ork Turn4: He brought a soul grinder in on my back table edge, so I sent my battlewagon over there to settle it. Its flamer took a piece of a boyz mob. I was *just* short to ram it - this is where my boyz get flamed and other bad things - out of the mob, the nob lives with 3 boys - still fearless from Ghazghkull's Waaaugh! so they stick around - they're going to go play with the soul grinder and try powerklawing it.


I enter my shooting phase and take a picture pre-burna of his fiends.


Post burna shot...all gone, and only a crispy smell remains.


My diminished big boyz squad and the battlewagon (still with a big mek in it) assault his soul grinder, and a lucky shot destroys it!


Bottom of Daemon turn4, and his HQs both finally come in! Right next to my nob wagon. THe soul grinder comes in a little bit away from where he wanted, but he runs them both in close so that he'll be able to jump on and contest my objective turn5.


I had finally broken out of my other two combats with a win and had a deffkopta with one wound left, and Ghazghkull on foot (but far from action). My wounded Deffkopta did a 24" turbo-boost over behind his soul grinder to contest the objective (my gretchin were dead now)....although I think I'm getting ahead of myself in my battle report here.


He did some maneuvering, but didn't have much shooting to do. His red soul grinder threatening the gretchin assaulted in and...killed one! I went on to kill his whole unit of horrors with those gretchin, causing his other unit of horrors to turn around and make some headway towards his objective to try claiming it.

Ork Turn5: I zoomed my burna battlewagon back to the action and dumped out the burnas - wanted to get past that FNP on the great unclean one and get those nobs in and ending the units he wants to contest my objectives with. THey do the job admirably, and both HQs die - I put in full details in a later post here about how I dealt with the Bloodthirster and the Unclean One - don't want to write it all again.


Meanwhile, the offensive looking trukk zoomed 12" forward, dumped boy boyz, who assault the horror unit that is closing in on his objective. They kill it and my deffkopta and boyz work to serve a dual threat for contest the objective. He has no troops left on the board now, just a soul grinder and a unit of blood crushers.


At this point, he's got a turn left, but he can only kill one of the units contesting his objective - and he's got the 4x blood thirsters in the middle along with his renegade soul grinder sitting on an objective, but no troops choices - he gracefully concedes and I pick up a 30 point massacre.

I can't help but be a little concerned; how I was having to play felt alien, and if he hadn't rolled so abysmally bad, I feel like I would have gotten kicked around the table. Not sure what I should have done different, but I know that what I *did* do didn't feel right and I felt like I won mostly by luck.

Stay tuned for the next battlereport, written when it isn't 12:43 AM with an angry wife nagging me.

Interesting report, Dash. Thanks for posting. I always think it's a shame when one player rolls so awfully for most of a game, it cheats everyone of a good contest! I was really looking forward to seeing how you'd deal with the Bloodthirster for example. His Soul Grinders seemed the very definition of ineffectual!

Anyway, looking forward to the next one.

Nice report with many pictures. It sounded like, again, the burna boys were the MVPs?

However, the best combat in this game for me was the gretchin assault on the horrors..and winning The weakest unit I can think of assaulting something deliberately and winning...gotta love that.

No way Dash, you did awesome..

The Daemon guy just got what he was playing.. ..randomness. Your plan was well thought out, well executed and it was hilarious to read the report, my favs being the simply running over a soulgrinder, the "hey look where those fiends ended up" torch torch, and the little Gretchen beating the horrors.

I think the Daemon Codex is BS so this was fun to see it get hammered, GW took all of the weaknesses and issues out of the army in this latest dex for some reason, the instability and not to mention the denizens of the rival gods can work together, this was unheard of a few additions back, when you couldn't have Demonettes and Bloodletters next to each other with out them getting into a fist fight, after all that was the only thing stopping the daemons from overwhelming the mortal universe right? Wrong I guess.

Kudos to you for putting the daemons back where they belong...in the warp.

Good report. Just look out for this army if it rolls even average Daemons are a pretty nasty army but they do suffer from a bit of randomness. The nice part is that they can mitigate this with excellent units throughout the field. Good job on rolling over soulgrinder Did he at least attempt a suicide stand?

Tantras wrote:I was really looking forward to seeing how you'd deal with the Bloodthirster for example.

In case I didn't explain it in my thread, the soul grinder and the great unclean one deep struck next to each other - the soul grinder scattered a bit which is why they were further apart from each other than he wanted. His plan was to use his horrors to own his and use his two HQs to contest mine, so I threw everything close enough to get to them at them. THe bloodthirster with a 3+/4++ and the Unclean One with a 4++/FNP - I dropped the nobs out of the battlewagon, turned my burna wagon around, zipped 12" back towards the combat and piled them out - the nob battlewagon and the nobs themselves (3 kombi-rokkits, 2 ammo runt rerolls) and some pistols fired at the Bloodthirster; I dealt one wound. I charged into close combat - I put the powerklaws into the Great Unclean One, the other nobs into the Bloodthirster, and all 15 burna boyz stacked up into the great unclean one. The bloodthirster was STR7, so couldn't insta-kill my nobs so I wasn't worried. I got a 5++ against his attacks and managed to whiff every single one and take 5 wounds in my nob unit. In return, my big choppas, painboy, regular nobs deal the three wounds required to finish off the bloodthirster.

Then my 12 burna boys (minus one attack each, and missing three from the Unclean One's attacks) dropped a wound or two onto the great unclean one (no FNP), and I sat there trying to figure out how I lost combat for a minute before realizing that I had forgotten to swing my powerklaws - who came through and finished off the Unclean One, leaving my Nobs holding my objective and with nothing anywhere close by.

Witzkatz wrote:Nice report with many pictures. It sounded like, again, the burna boys were the MVPs?

However, the best combat in this game for me was the gretchin assault on the horrors..and winning The weakest unit I can think of assaulting something deliberately and winning...gotta love that.

Burnas held their own, and they usually do. The gretchin combat actually gets better - they assaulted the horrors - I was just suiciding them in to try thinning their numbers a bit so I could pick them off with big shootas or something. When they won combat the first round, I was surprised, but then the following turn, he assaulted my gretchin with a soul grinder. And he whiffed attacks and the soul grinder killed one gretchin while I killed two horrors...and I ended up winning combat with a unit of 8 gretchin against 4 horrors and a soul grinder. His horrors were gimped a little bit because my runt-herder put 3 of his horrors at -1 attack, so he was only getting to attack with a few of his guys.

IG88 wrote:No way Dash, you did awesome..

The Daemon guy just got what he was playing.. ..randomness. Your plan was well thought out, well executed and it was hilarious to read the report, my favs being the simply running over a soulgrinder, the "hey look where those fiends ended up" torch torch, and the little Gretchen beating the horrors.

I'm not sure about well executed and thought out - I didn't know what to do, so I ended up reacting the entire game. He would deep strike something, and I would rush over to kill it. Boyz jump out and assault horrors and get eaten by a soul grinder in return. GHazghkull jumping out and killing bloodcrushers, then being too far away from anything to do anything the rest of the game. I didn't have a coherent plan - I didn't want to split my forces, so I rolled everything onto the objective by me. Throughout the game, he was deep striking by my Lootas, or in midfield....he didn't deepstrike anything near my big force until turn4, and I felt like he was playing for a tie, at which point I had to break out and send a trukk and a deffkopta over to his objective to make sure that I will contest his. Honestly, that wasn't a master plan, that was an on-the-fly "What do I do this turn to make sure that I don't lose." I guess that's my point - I didn't have any next-turn vision, or master plan - it was just a reactionary game.

Ghazghull took out the BC by himself? That guy is a beast.

He might have rolled bad, but you didn't even need your Nobs, if you had...

Hulksmash wrote:Good report. Just look out for this army if it rolls even average Daemons are a pretty nasty army but they do suffer from a bit of randomness. The nice part is that they can mitigate this with excellent units throughout the field. Good job on rolling over soulgrinder Did he at least attempt a suicide stand?

Yes - He DoGed my wagon and whiffed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Snikkyd wrote:Ghazghull took out the BC by himself? That guy is a beast.

He might have rolled bad, but you didn't even need your Nobs, if you had...

Yes, I tend to rely on Ghazghkull to do my heavy lifting. My SVDM battle reports all follow that trend, and the other battle reports I will be writing here shortly follow the theme. Ghazghkull Thraka vs a unit of nob bikers....bwah ha ha. More on that later.

Hrm, interesting list and cool battle report. Luck seems to have been on your side.

You mention doing something wrong, the only thing I could see is your trukk was stuck behind all your wagons, not a bad thing though in the end, it lived until the end where you could throw it at the soul-grinder.

Min loota squads confuse me, how'd they work out?

Comments:

You say: "I didn't know that..." at least twice above (the Changeling and EW). On one hand, you're learning codices that show up at tourneys. OTOH, it's never acceptable to be surprised by a common or semi-common rule (all daemons having EW, for example).

Also

I didn't know what to do, so I ended up reacting the entire game.

is bad. Like really, really, really bad. It worked because he had chilly-seeming dice and the wrong wave, but going into a game like that usually means a loss.

Gretchin will beat Horrors in HtH no problem. Horrors == Fire Warriors. Exact same statline with a different (better) gun.

Excellent report, thanks for all the pics. Grots are awesome, they just shot Marbo to death in my last game!! Woot!

Keep experimenting with the loota mob size.

I just updated my original post to flesh out some of the details - I wrote this *really* late last night.

Luck was on my side (or at least not on my opponent's side) but I've never relied on luck - I try playing a list that is statistically sound and capable of bringing a challenge to any list, while relying on my tactical ability to bring me over the edge. While the orks have some very potent weaponry (that are also random) I don't really like using those things; I like reliability.

As for my Lootas - the reason I have squads of five is because I don't have the points for units of 15. I tried them in my last GT and had line of sight issues, so am not really willing to commit to units of 15 now. I fall into the camp of using 5 or 15 - with 5, they'll get a chance to crack some transports, or if nothing else, be a 75 point bullet absorption tool. They sit back at 48", meaning that they aren't getting bolter fire, so its long range cannons or lascannons opening up on them (or deep strikers) - meaning that other units aren't getting fired on - standard MSU stuff. If they get 3 shots apiece, that's still 15 shots, and with an average of 10 shots, 3-4 hits, and 1-2 glance/pens, they're still getting the job done.

This *is* my first tournament using warbuggies, using 5 man Loota units....this is only my second tournament using Lootas at all. I have to admit that I find the 5 Loota units attractive; they are another unit to have to shoot at and deal with, and even running full mech orks, I still have a lot of killpoints. I've never been worried about killpoint missions - either I beat down my opponent or get beaten down; there isn't really a middle ground with orks.

Well, as as a straight up Kult O' Speed player I haven't used any Lootas either. I did break down (pun intended) and started using grots again since 5th came out. I'm looking forward to seeing how your 5 ork Loota squads do. After last week's game I was thinking of breaking up my 12 ork bike squad into smaller units. Your post has great tips and ideas on MSU. Thanks!!

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:Comments:

You say: "I didn't know that..." at least twice above (the Changeling and EW). On one hand, you're learning codices that show up at tourneys. OTOH, it's never acceptable to be surprised by a common or semi-common rule (all daemons having EW, for example).

Also

I didn't know what to do, so I ended up reacting the entire game.

is bad. Like really, really, really bad. It worked because he had chilly-seeming dice and the wrong wave, but going into a game like that usually means a loss.

This works both ways though. The *REASON* I didn't know what to do is because nothing came down on the board. If he had managed to get some solid units on the table; voila - I would have had a clear target to focus my orky wrath on. What I mean by "I don't know what to do" is that he had scattered units across the board, with me having no clear target to focus on.

And I don't treat "I didn't know that" moments angrily - just a thoughtful note that makes me adjust on the fly to learning about a new codex. Isn't that part of what makes a good general? Being able to adjust on the fly to new information?

Nice batrep - a good read and the sequential piccies worked a treat. So what turned happy wife into angry wife?

Dashofpepper wrote:This *is* my first tournament using warbuggies, using 5 man Loota units....this is only my second tournament using Lootas at all. I have to admit that I find the 5 Loota units attractive; they are another unit to have to shoot at and deal with

For the record, as a DE player I approve of this mindset. I'd much rather try to kill five Lootas then fifteen.

Fun batrep to read and your opponent's grinders looked awesome - it's a shame they didn't roll as well as they looked.

Necroagogo wrote:Nice batrep - a good read and the sequential piccies worked a treat. So what turned happy wife into angry wife?

Angry wife was result of spending 3+ hours uploading and writing said battle report when I could tell that he was dead on his feet and way past the tired stage ...which was why he had to rewrite stuff and make it more coherent.

Angry wife was really more concerned wife...we've both been sick with bronchitis. He was drugged with Nyquil; not very good to write a battle report on.


He did a great job at the tourney with my pinkies, I'm so proud!

Good battle rep, Kinda glad and sad, mostly because I play both armys. It was really good to read how you played your orks

Dashofpepper wrote:Isn't that part of what makes a good general? Being able to adjust on the fly to new information?

IRL, yes. In a tourney, it's a perfect information game. Unit do have a range of possible performances based on dice rolls, but you have the capability to know everything about your opponent's army as soon as you see the list. Being surprised at something vs. knowing that it's coming is very important in 40K. Being surprised is a mistake in 40K whereas IRL it's part of the whole thing.

Thor665 wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:This *is* my first tournament using warbuggies, using 5 man Loota units....this is only my second tournament using Lootas at all. I have to admit that I find the 5 Loota units attractive; they are another unit to have to shoot at and deal with

For the record, as a DE player I approve of this mindset. I'd much rather try to kill five Lootas then fifteen.

As an ork player I also approve of the 5-ork loota squads, I would rather buy 10 lootas than 30

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Isn't that part of what makes a good general? Being able to adjust on the fly to new information?

IRL, yes. In a tourney, it's a perfect information game. Unit do have a range of possible performances based on dice rolls, but you have the capability to know everything about your opponent's army as soon as you see the list. Being surprised at something vs. knowing that it's coming is very important in 40K. Being surprised is a mistake in 40K whereas IRL it's part of the whole thing.

I will both agree and disagree with this.

The brute of iron is correct in noting that you don't want to ever be surprised at a tourney if you desire to win. In some ways you can protect yourself from this by knowing stuff such as rules from the opponent's codex and other such minutiae.

I will, however, note that Dash is very correct in defending the concept that a good general be able to adjust to new information - and that can and does happen on the "battlefield" of 40k. Sometimes the dice do odd things, sometimes plans do not go the way they should. At times like that it is important in 40k to be able to reassess, readjust, and rework your plans and reactions on the fly to the new situation. That skill is part of what makes you good at 40k...but so is eerie encyclopedic knowledge of all the other armies.

Information *is* important. Every tournament I go to, I learn more about the armies of 40k. I'm almost at the two year mark of 40k experience, and there's still a lot that I don't know. That encylopedia like information *will* come with time as I gain more experience against various codexes. Right now I know the basics of other codexes, and my knowledge is expanding into more detail about them.

I make up for not being able to quote other codex' stat lines by asking *very* pointed questions before the game and during - any opponent I've played can attest to that. I ask about special rules, what has the ability to outflank, what has ranged weapons, where they are, how many here are, what has the ability to deep strike, what has scout moves....whether units have power weapons, or rending weapons....all that kind of stuff.

I get surprised from time to time, mostly when I see something I haven't run into before. Bloodcrushers having EW was a surprise to me, but didn't make a difference....it was just something I didn't know. I knew that they wouldn't kill Ghazghkull, and I knew Ghazghkull would eventually kill them; it just took a turn longer than I thought it would. I try *very* hard to make sure that I don't get surprised by unpleasant things by making sure I ask the important questions to flesh out my knowledge during the game.

When his Bloodthirster and Great Unclean One deepstruck onto me....I don't know a whole lot about them, so I asked about their saves, their STR, and their toughness on the spot. It told me to attack the unclean one with power weapons to bypass FNP, and that I could safely throw my nobs into the bloodthirster since he was STR7. If he had been STR8, he would have gotten my burnas instead while my nobs went after the unclean one.

But my point is that I do my best to mitigate the things I don't know every game by carefully asking about things I can see that I don't know about.

Thor665 wrote:I will, however, note that Dash is very correct in defending the concept that a good general be able to adjust to new information - and that can and does happen on the "battlefield" of 40k. Sometimes the dice do odd things, sometimes plans do not go the way they should. At times like that it is important in 40k to be able to reassess, readjust, and rework your plans and reactions on the fly to the new situation. That skill is part of what makes you good at 40k...but so is eerie encyclopedic knowledge of all the other armies.

I was talking about "army information". In 40K, nothing changes there. You're talking about "tactical information", what the player does with the army and I completely agree that adapting to that is essential to good generalship.

And @ Dash:
Asking == perfect thing to do

Great report, noticed a few possible errors. In the plaguebearer vs deathkopta fight he should have only needed 4s to wound as they have poison and where you tank shocking and then firing with the vehicle or unit inside? I'm pretty sure that if you ram/tankshock you are not able to shoot at all (of course you may have been tank shocking with another battlewagon and then firing with another, I couldnt tell).

Dashofpepper wrote:When his Bloodthirster and Great Unclean One deepstruck onto me....I don't know a whole lot about them, so I asked about their saves, their STR, and their toughness on the spot. It told me to attack the unclean one with power weapons to bypass FNP, and that I could safely throw my nobs into the bloodthirster since he was STR7. If he had been STR8, he would have gotten my burnas instead while my nobs went after the unclean one.

Just an aside - I think this may be the first Bloodthirster I've ever seen that didn't take Unholy Might for the S8 upgrade. Next time you play Daemons, be aware that most Bloodthirsters are S8 standing still.

Janthkin wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:When his Bloodthirster and Great Unclean One deepstruck onto me....I don't know a whole lot about them, so I asked about their saves, their STR, and their toughness on the spot. It told me to attack the unclean one with power weapons to bypass FNP, and that I could safely throw my nobs into the bloodthirster since he was STR7. If he had been STR8, he would have gotten my burnas instead while my nobs went after the unclean one.

Just an aside - I think this may be the first Bloodthirster I've ever seen that didn't take Unholy Might for the S8 upgrade. Next time you play Daemons, be aware that most Bloodthirsters are S8 standing still.

I strongly agree. It's a 20pt option that, in tournament play, can be invaluable. "Hey, independently equipped, multi-wound Ork bike units... blow me!"

gardeth wrote:Great report, noticed a few possible errors. In the plaguebearer vs deathkopta fight he should have only needed 4s to wound as they have poison...

I noticed that, too. Pretty important mistake on the Daemon players part.

Oh, and his lack of Flamers of Tzeentch made me weep...

CatPeeler wrote:

gardeth wrote:Great report, noticed a few possible errors. In the plaguebearer vs deathkopta fight he should have only needed 4s to wound as they have poison...

I noticed that, too. Pretty important mistake on the Daemon players part.

Oh, and his lack of Flamers of Tzeentch made me weep...

No flamers of Tzeentch was nice for me. I *do* remember him telling me that he had poison and only needed 4+ to wound - I do my best to recount the battles, but I wasn't focused on the deffkopta fighting, that was only a distraction fight from main events happening elsewhere.

In terms of the Bloodthirster without the Unholy Might - I would have still had the same 5+ cybork body save. I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but if he had been STR8...I would have assaulted his bloodthirster with my burnas and the great unclean one with the nobs instead of vice versus. I had both units handy, and that would have neatly negated the utility of unholy might.

Dashofpepper wrote:In terms of the Bloodthirster without the Unholy Might - I would have still had the same 5+ cybork body save. I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but if he had been STR8...I would have assaulted his bloodthirster with my burnas and the great unclean one with the nobs instead of vice versus. I had both units handy, and that would have neatly negated the utility of unholy might.

Just being informative; most Bloodthirsters will be S8, and you should be aware of that.

(Burnas on the BT would have had a much harder time killing him, too - 5+ to hit his WS10, 6's to wound, and your Nobs would have lost more quality attacks from the Cloud of Flies. It worked out better for you this way.)

Janthkin wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:In terms of the Bloodthirster without the Unholy Might - I would have still had the same 5+ cybork body save. I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but if he had been STR8...I would have assaulted his bloodthirster with my burnas and the great unclean one with the nobs instead of vice versus. I had both units handy, and that would have neatly negated the utility of unholy might.

Just being informative; most Bloodthirsters will be S8, and you should be aware of that.

(Burnas on the BT would have had a much harder time killing him, too - 5+ to hit his WS10, 6's to wound, and your Nobs would have lost more quality attacks from the Cloud of Flies. It worked out better for you this way.)

The burnas entered my army in the first place to be MC killers for the old nid dex when carnifexes were popular and had 2+ armor saves. They served against hordes well, but they basically became a staple of my list so that I'd have an answer to tyranids.

Keep in mind that my burnas were at -1 attack against the Unclean One as well - they only had 30 attacks instead of 45, and 45 attacks against the Bloodthirster would have dealt three wounds (which he would invul save against). Its also worth noting that I had two battlewagons capable of smacking on those models with their deffrollas that I didn't use - I didn't think I needed the extra help, and I also had a unit of Lootas left alive....not to mention that I could have done some more voodoo magic with my burnas (giving up power weapon status) to dump quite a few burnas into both the unclean one and the bloodthirster....

There *are* a lot of what ifs. I used the force I thought was necessary to kill them (I did use my kombi-rokkits to wound the bloodthirster), and turned out to be correct in my assessment. I had Ghazghkull with 3 wounds left that could have moved back to the battlewagon and scooted over to assist against his HQs if I needed him to (albeit on the next turn) but I left him there because I felt like I was doing ok. =p