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BatRep - Hardboyz Tournament Round One
The Realm Games and Comics

Hey all,

Here's my recap of the first round of the Hardboyz Tournament for the Southern California area.  The Realm is my local game store, and although having a large Fantasy player base, still contains plenty of 40k players also.  I took my standard Tau list with a few extras, as I felt familiarity would help in this sort of situation.


Shadowsun
Shas'el Fireknife w/ 2 FK bodyguards and 2 Shield Drones

3 Fireknives w/ 2 Shield Drones
3 Fireknives w/ 2 Shield Drones
3 Deathrains w/ Targetting Arrays

6 Firewarriors w/ Devilfish
10 Kroot
10 Kroot
10 Kroot

8 Pathfinders w/ Devilfish
8 Pathfinders w/ Devilfish
1 Pirahna w/ Fusion Blaster and Targetting Array

2 Railheads w/ Burst Cannons
3 Broadsides w/ 2 Shield Drones and Stabilizers.


With the extra point allotments, I felt that Shadowsun would be a very effective HQ choice, as well as an emergency antitank backup system.  I intentionally downgraded all my Warfish to standard Devilfish w/ Disruption Pods, as I was unsure of the level of terrain.  The extra battlesuits would definitely need places to JSJ from, and a landed (or crashed) Devilfish works just as well.  Although normally a large proponent of the Ionhead, I was uncomfortable with only 3 Railguns in a large scale environment, thus the Railheads took the field for the first time in a long while.

For this battle report, I was experimenting with using my camera, and I'll be the first to admit that some of the pictures are sorta meh.  Weird angles and overuse of the flash are the big ones, so I'll have to work on that later.  So if you're looking at the pictures and have no idea what's going on, my apologies.

Game One - vs Todd playing Tau

Entertainingly enough, Todd and I are playing very similar lists.  He's got a bit more Firewarriors and Fireknives, while I'm using Kroot and Shadowsun.  Course, the Kroot aren't going to be able to do a lot here, but we'll see what happens.

Shas'O with CIB, Plasma and two Fireknife bodyguards
Shas'O Fireknife and two Fireknife bodyguards

3 3 man Fireknife teams

2 6 man Firewarrior teams w/ Warfish

2 6 man Pathfinder teams w/ Warfish

3 Broadsides w/ Shield Drones and ASS
1 Railhead
1 Ionhead


Mission is Recon with a reverse setup order (Fast Attack, Elites, Troops, HQ, Heavy Support) and constant artillery bombardment across the field (which we forgot to play with!!!).  With the rather low amount of terrain on the board, both of us set up lengthwise with exposed skimmers all over the place.  First turn is going to mean a lot here.



Todd gets first turn.      Railgun fire destroys one Ralhead's gun and shakes the other.  All three of my forward deployed Devilfish eat Missile Pod fire and two go down, while the other is stunned.  My return fire comes back with multiple Shaken results on his skimmers while his Broadsides have their Shield Drones knocked down.

Skimmers advance on both flanks of the field, as the center is a good way to get shot.  The Kroot massed on the left side are obviously no match for multiple Hammerheads and get bashed into submission.  On the right side, SMS fire arcs over the blocking terrain and kill 2 Crisis Suits and 2 Shield Drones from a Fireknife squad in an impressive display of subpar armour saves.  My Broadsides pick up on their Pathfinder guidance, blow away 2 of their counterparts and break the remaining one.  Since I've now got some cover from downed Devilfish, I begin to move my Crisis teams forward a bit.  A few more shaken skimmers on Todd's side, no biggie.



Both Firewarriors teams drop into the right building, sink the Pirahna and bounce rounds off the Railhead.  SMS fire strips another group of Shield Drones, but Shadowsun's Leadership keeps everyone in the fight.  On the left, the remaining Kroot get murderized, but the small Firewarrior team makes a ton of Cover Saves and remains defiantly blocking the advance.

On the right, my Railhead Tank Shocks forward, scattering all three enemy Devilfish and breaking both Firewarrior teams in the building.  My main advance is swinging towards the right while the left side can hopefully stop Todd's advance.  Essentially we're both doing the same game plan, just mirrored.  My suits blow off SMS launchers and draw Shaken results, but I just can't seem to kill anything.



Third turn, Todd attempts to return the favor by Tankshocking my Suit mobs on the right and my infantry on the left.  With Ld10, they don't have much to worry about at all, but the Carbine Warriors on the left break and start running.  The retreating Firewarrior teams in the building don't fall back far at all and bring my Railhead down with volleys to the rear.

In a straight gunfighter move, Shadowsun leaps around the Devilfish that tried to crush her, blows it up with a behind-the-back shot, then draws a bead on another 'Fish in front her and Shakes it with her second fusion blaster.      A hostile Fireknife team eats multiple Plasma rounds and breaks, which is good news.  The bad news is the left side is being overwhelmed and my Shas'el command team really isn't likely to last long.  They beat up their counterpart command team, but are exposed to an Ionhead and another Fireknife team.  My Broadsides rip into the TankShocking Devilfish on the left and bring it down.



The running Fireknife team regroups (boo!) and steps back into the fight.  The two broken Warrior teams on the right continue to roll low on their difficult terrain and continue to pepper my Crisis suits with pulse fire.  Between them and the regrouped Fireknife team, I lose my last Fireknife team as they're just short of making it into a section of cover.On the left, my command team is hammered by Ion bolts and then are Plasma'd and finished off by a charging Crisis team.

Shadowsun continues the advance, backed up by only a single Deathrain team now.  She melts both Crisis suits that regrouped last turn and bounces forward.  The Deathrains shoot cross-board and destroy two weapons from the Ionhead.



The broken Firewarriors (I'm not sure how demoralized they really are) continue their "retreat" and strafe Shadownsun as they run by, taking out all of her drones.  Todd's center command team shoots up the Deathrains and reduce them below scoring.

Welp, that's going to just about do it for me.  With only a single damaged Railhead close to the enemy deployment zone and 3 right on top of mine, I dont think I can do  anything else.  I collect a few more Shaken results, but nothing spectacular.



Shadowsun gets shot down by the running Firewarriors, just to add insult to injury.  In my turn, the Broadsides bring the Ionhead down with a few more Weapon Destroyed results, but there's still too many scoring units left.



And that'll end round 1.  I suffer a Major Defeat and pick up an awesome 3 battle points.  Todd comes away with 18 (17 for the win and 1 for killing Shadowsun).  Let's see how the rest of the games go.

Game Two - vs. Ellis playing Thousand Sons (old codex)

Ellis is playing the sort of army that normally I wouldn't worry too much about, as I can safely plug them from range whie they slowly advance forward.  However, in this
mission, Troop selections come out of Reserve and can appear on ANY table edge. 

I'm really not too enamoured of 6 squads of Sons waltzing right into my castle, so I'm going to have to come up with a different plan.


Chaos Sorcerer Lord w/ Terminator Armour, Thralls and goodies
Chaos Lieutenant w/ same as above
7 Chosen Sorcerer Terminators w/ Doombolt all around
5 Elite Terminators
6 5 man Thousand Sons squads
Lascannon Predator
Plasma Cannon Dreadnought
Land Raider

Everything that can take it is carrying Bolt of Change, so there's going to be mass carnage when they all appear at close range.  On the good side, he's pretty limited on what's actually deploying, so I'll have a bit of time to cut down the army before I start swimming in lascannon spells.



Deployment's pretty easy, and I'm set up in standard shooting gallery mode.  The trick is going to be surviving after the initial carnage.  The mission is a combination of Cleanse and Take & Hold, so there is a LOAD of points to be had from objectives.  I win first turn and take it.

Bang!  Predator blows up.  Bang!  Land Raider gets pounded and Stunned.  A few Terminators fall over.  Ellis doesn't do anything.  Next turn.



Nothing shows up on my turn.  Railgun fire blows the Land Raider into little tiny pieces, as the Terminators fall out entangled.  I nibble away at the Terminators and
begin my advance towards the center, using my Pathfinder Devilfish to block the back of my army, just in case.

On Ellis' turn, 3 squads of Thousand Sons show up and come on the board on one of the side corners.  In a nice display of measurement, he range snipes a Fireknife team leader (which kills the Shield Drones), and then wrecks the rest of the squad with subsequent Bolts of Change. 



Two Kroot packs enter the field and I bring one in on Ellis' far corner and the other
behind his Dreadnought.  Both are well hidden and he'll have to bring a squad in on
top of them to remove them.  The Kroot rapid fire into the back of the Dreadnought,
but can't bring it down.  A nearby passing Railhead decides to donate a single
hypervelocity round though, which does the trick.  I destroy the big squad of
Terminators and their attached Lieutenant and continue my march into the center of
the field.

Another Thousand Sons squad shows up, and range snipes ANOTHER Fireknife
team leader.  This one is completely my fault, as I really should have started reforming them to protect after the first one.  In my defense, I was out of range, but Warp Focus added a perfect 2" on to the Bolt of Change along with a 6" S&P move onto the board. 



My last Kroot pack shows up and hides off in the right corner some more.  My Crisis
suits are getting beat the heck up, and I'm starting to have second thoughts about
the validity of just standing in the center of the board and eating Bolts of Change all
day.  Too late to change though, so I stick it out.  The last Terminator squad gets
burned down and the Lord eats multiple Railgun slugs despite his Daemonic Rune.

The last 2 Sons squads show up in my corner and start advancing.  I take a few more casualties, but now I know where all his units are.



The rest of the game is pretty much a foregone conclusion as I retreat backwards out of range of the Bolts of Change while donating Railgun love to every Thousand Son that pokes their head out of cover.  Ellis knows what I'm doing, but he's far too slow to catch me, and just for good measure I block off his advance with Drones.



The game ends with me controlling his home corner, my home corner, a side corner
and the center of the field.  Although I've taken some rather ugly losses in the Crisis
team department, the bonus VPs launch me way the heck over the top.  I pick up the
maximum 24 points to Ellis' 1.

Game Three - vs. Nick playing Tau

Yup, it's another Tau on Tau fight.  I've never seen so many Tau players at a tournament before, I'm usually the only one.  In any case, the mission has a limited deployment zone (the 10" L) and once again it uses the reverse deployment order of the 1st mission.  There's two loot counters placed by the players and each one is worth 1,250 VP (!).  Additionally, anybody touching the counter is Fearless.  Since we hadn't heard about actually having to bring counters, we just used the namecards provided to us and put them down on the field. 

Shas'el Fireknife w/ 2 FK bodyguards
Shas'el Helios w/ 2 Helios bodyguards

3 Deathrains
3 Fireknives
6 Stealth Suits w/ 1 Fusion Blaster

1 12 man Firewarrior team on foot
2 12 man Firewarrior teams w/ Devilfish
1 20 man Kroot pack

8 Gun Drones

2 Railheads
1 Ionhead


I lose the infiltration roll and the massive Kroot pack ends up standing on one objective, while the Stealth team is almost next to another.  I setup my Pathfinders with good visibility on both objectives and set my Kroot to rush one objecive while my suits will advance up the center.  Not wanting to cram everything into the small deployment zone, I Deep Strike the Shas'el command team and the Deathrains.  Nick wins first turn.



Railgun fire blazes forth again, but unlike the first game, I've actually got places to hide some of my stuff.  I get away with a Stunned Devilfish on the vehicle side, which is just fine with me.  The Stealth team jumps into the bunker and strafes the Kroot, breaking a pack, but there's still two more bearing down on them.

Both remaining Kroot packs run forward and rapid fire into the Stealth team, knocking them down to a single model.  The Broadsides split fire, bring down the Ionhead with a single round and then Stun a Railhead with the other two.  Both my Railheads fire on the unStunned one and blow off it's Railgun and a Burst Cannon.  Not a bad start at all.



Fire Warriors begin opening fire at long range, but fail target priority and mow down 2 sets of pop-off Drones.  The front Kroot squad gets slammed, but keeps moving.  Missile Pod fire takes down a Pathfinder Devilfish and Shakes a Railhead, but that's really about all.

Both of my Deep Strikers show up and land safely on the left side.  All my suits are in full advance mode and marker lights pick out 2 Devilfish which are promptly sunk by Fireknife weaponry.  My lead Kroot pack guns down the lone Stealth suit and moves into the objective bunker with a backup pack right beind them.  On the right objective, the Pathfinders illuminate a just disembarked Firewarrior team, remove their cover save, and my second Railhead drops the "lawnmower" round on them, killing 9 and a few unlucky Kroot standing nearby.



Nick moves his Fireknife Commander and backup to try to blunt the Kroot/battlesuit charge on the left.  My Command team takes wounds, but an intervening Gun Drone causes another failed priority check and a lot of fire goes awry.  On the right, the Kroot and Fire Warriors holding the objective have little choice but to hunker down and hope to absorb the Railgun submunitions heading their way.  Nick's battlesuits take up JSJ positions behind their downed skimmers, hoping to make the impeding close range combat a bloody one.

My Firewarrior Devilfish tank shocks the defending Fire Warriors, breaking them and clearing the way.  The Pathfinders light up the Kroot again and two Submunitions erase them from the objective.  On the left, Shadowsun blows off the Hammerhead's last remaining burst cannon, but can't kill it.



Trying to press for a last ditch-effort on the left objective (and with time being called), Nick's suits advance forward, blazing fire at the Kroot, but can't break them.  On the right, the remnants of the Firewarriors and NIck's other Commander take up position on the objective in a last stand.

My lead Railhead Tank Shocks onto the right objective, scattering the Fire Warriors, but Nick's Commander holds his ground and brings the skimmer down with a Death or Glory Fusion Blaster shot!  My Pirahna zips forward though and promptly returns the favor, allowing my Fireknives to easily take the objective.  On the left, concentrated Kroot rifle fire and plasma rifles kill the last remaining hostile Tau and claim the left objective.




The game ends with me owning both objectives and fulfilling 3 of the bonus objectives for a total of 23 points to Nick's 0. 


And with that, the tournament comes to a close.  To my great suprise, I end up with 50 Victory Points, which is enough for a 2nd place finish and a trip to the next round.  I suppose I'm more used to standard RTT scoring where a big loss means you're definitely not going anywhere, but the top tables ended up in a lot of minor wins.  Hope you enjoyed the read and I'll try to get some better pictures next time.

Hey Erik/Spmusubi congrats on your second place finish. Isn't this the first time that you have lost to Todd/Cypher? I look forward to seeing you at Game Empire next month for round 2 of this crazy event.

Darrian
(Second place at Aero Hobbies 'ArdBoy)

All I can say is that I would never play on any of those tables. We regulary play with four times as much terrain. Those tables are barren wastelands.

Horrible...

BYE

Great...I take it that Todd/Cypher will move on to the next round too? I hate playing Tau.

And don't worry H.M.B.C. I played at the game store that will host the Southern California regionals, and they had so much terrain, that my Dark Reapers only shot once in round 2 and 3.

How'd you like those nutty missions? When I read the second one (I got a Wych cult as enemy) I just about flipped out. Quite a rude awakening for gun line and mobile armies.

Terrain is hugely regional. The sorts of tables he played on is the same kind of thing we have going on in the Atlanta area. Typically its all size 3 area terrain though.

Thanks Darrian! Nope, this isn't the first time I've lost to Todd as he used to Drop Pod/Fear of the Darkness me off the board all the time earlier. It might be the first time I've lost to his Tau though. *shrug*

H.B.M.C. - Completely in agreement with you there. Although I frequent the store a lot, I don't play 40k there all that often and I don't think there was enough terrain to go around. My usual games have tons of terrain, and this was about the lowest amount I've ever played with. As Blackmoor said though, Game Empire Pasadena is chock full of enough terrain to recreate Vietnam style jungle battles, so I don't foresee a problem in the second round.

Blackmoor - Don't worry, I gave Todd zeroes on both Sportsmanship and Composition, so he came in 7th overall. He won't be going ....oh wait, yeah he will.

40kenthusiast: I really did like the missions, as I was figuring it'd be the same five out of the BGB. The 2nd one in particular took some thinking, and although I'm pretty sure I came up with the wrong plan, it was interesting to have to plan on the fly instead of my pre-designed formations. Although Darrian will laugh at me for it, we pretty much had to designate everything level 3 area terrain just to get some sort of protection. I much prefer using a mix of area/actual terrain though.

Is Cliff running the second round thing in Pasedena?  If so, it will be mech eldar paradise.  At least he won't be able to doctor the scores (just the pairings), though....

No, Chuck (Cliff's brother) is running the event in Pasadena. Yes it will be mech Eldar paradise, but I wont be playing them this time. I really do hope he manipulates the pairings so I wont have to lose to you again.

Darrian

LOL well, you did win overall, thanks to soft scores, of all things.  In any case, I will see you guys in two weeks time.  My list is no real secret, so you know what I am bringing, but I was under the impression that you had to have the same army type from round to round?

Definatley not enough terrain and it stacks the odds in the shootiest armies favor.