Longtime Dakkanaut
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The location:
Dicehead had gotten another cavern in the Mall, same place as we went for 'Ard Boys round 2. They'd moved their vending supplies down there and set up copious tables. Further, their was coupons in every mission packet for the in-mall eating establishments. Everyone got nametags with player numbers on them (a worthwhile thing to copy, other tournament guys), and every player got a number for matchup purposes. The missions were handed out at the start, the terrain was pretty good, nothing phenomenal but not atrocious and the field was large and varied.
Scoring:
As always at Dicehead there were a LOT of soft scores. Using Rogue Trader BP's the winner and loser of a game only have a difference of 10 points and bonus points, and there's a fairly extensive collection of soft scores you can accumulate. I know a guy who got two wins and a loss with a an army that received a medium paint/theme score, and he came in behind a player who got 2 losses and a tie but fantastic soft scores.
The field:
I'm going off a somewhat rough memory, but here's how I recall it.
Space Marines x5
Necrons x5
Nids x3
Orks x2
Eldar x4
Space Wolves x2
Dark Eldar x1
Black Templar x1
Daemonhunters x1
Witch Hunters x2
Dark Angels x1
Imperial Guard x2
Tau x1
There were definitely more folks there, but those are the #'s I remember from a brief survey. I distinctly recall that the only codex that was not represented was Blood Angels.
Team ATL lists:
I'm using the Daemons, 4 heralds w/chariots and icons, 6 horror units w/bolts, 3 pairs of crushers, 3 grinders w/phlegm and 3 packs of dogs with renders
Player-A is using the Decepticrons (which he's finally admitted are better than his destroyers)
Player-B is using his Trifalcon Eldar
Player-D is using his more traditional Eldar
Player-E has his typical Orks, but he's trying out dropping Snikrot for another battle wagon w/boys
The first mission:
Cleanse 2 (they had a sort of a "farewell to 4th edition" theme going on, so the first mission was the 4th edition classic)
My opponent:
Space Wolves!
Fighty HQ w/frost blade
Fighty HQ w/frost blade
Boss Dread
9 Blood Claws w/wolf guard boss. rhino
9 Grey Slayers w/wolf guard boss, rhino
10 grey slayers w/wolf guard boss, rhino
10 grey slayers w/wolf guard boss, rhino
4 scouts
Leman Russ Exterminator
Land Raider
(all infantry has plasma/melta all over them)
My take:
This list might give me some problems, but I ought to be able to take em. Sooner or later his troops will get engaged with my khornate units, which will lead to mutual destruction. I've got a total of 19 scoring units in a cleanse mission, all deep striking. I think I can pull a win out of this by just dropping and fighting down his soldiers, leaving him with just the 3 vehicles, and heck, with the Horrors I might actually get one or two of them.
The game:
Well, about the only thing that goes like I figure is that my khornate units and his infantry mutually destroy one another. The soul grinders go down like chumps to a trio of glancing 6's, while I get the wrong half of the army and end up with a different game plan than I want. Horrors and Grinders, between them, have about a 10% hit ratio, and account for, in sum toto 2 missing CC arms on their boss dread. One of my Heralds simply doesn't come in all game long, so he's dead. All in all, a humiliating pasting, at the hands of Space Wolves. I'm just glad Player-A is the one who is beefing with the Blade and Bolter boys, of whom my opponent is a member.
It was a pleasant game, apart from my repeated slips into 5th edition and some troubling rolling, but I end up with 4 battle points (5 for losing, -1 for not claiming a single quarter). Pitiful...and this is my replacement for decepticrons? Come on guys, I know you are a 5th edition army, but my pride can't take lopsided trashings in round 1 from space wolves. It's just embarassing.
Player A's game, in his own words:
First round, Cleanse II: Assaulty bugs. 6x16 hormagaunts, 1x3 'thropes with warp blast, 1xflying cc tyrant with warp blast, 2x5 leaping warriors, 2x4 flying warriors.
I shot down his warriors before he could cross the field and the deceiver killed the flying tyrant.
Succinct as usual. He's got a longer batrep up at Librarium-online, where he posts as moob, but that sentence kind of tells the whole story.
Player-B's game:
First game:***** (one of the KOS people apparently)
Kind of a hybrid shooty/assaulty Tyranid thing.
1 VC/BS Fex, but with T7, 5 Wounds, and Regen
1 T7, 5 Wound, Regenerating Fex with Scything Talons and Crushing Claws
1 Elite Fex, 2xDevourers
1 VC/BS Tyrant
1 Winged Tyrant with 2 sets of Scything Talons (!!)
3 Zoeys with Warp Blast/Synapse
5 squads of Stealers with 4+ saves and Scything Talons (3 squads of 6, 2 of 7)
This one was pretty textbook. He had a little long-range firepower, but not nearly enough to dislodge me out of just castling in terrain and waiting on the stealers. I got first turn, and the Falcons killed a 6-man squad down to 2, and wounded a Zoey. His first shooting phase didn't do anything, and the Stealers moved forward. (Everything else did too.) I was pretty much castled up in the only piece of large terrain I had, Avatar hanging out front waiting (Fortuned starting turn 2 in case of long fleets), Avengers and Eldrad waiting. Starting turn 2, Eldrad Doomed the 2 closest Stealer squads, the Warp Spiders jumped forward to shoot, and the Avengers shot (non-Bladestorm). The Falcons finished off the squad that had two left and one Zoey. The Spiders' JSJ started taking them down my long board edge, along with one Falcon. The other two Falcons were creeping up the short edge. After my 2nd turn's shooting, he was down to 2 Stealer squads (and one random extra guy hanging around), 2 Zoeys and the MCs.
He shot down a Falcon turn 2, killed 3 of 6 Harlies. The Winged Tyrant assaulted the other Falcon to no effect. Shooting didn't see a lot else happen, although he almost caught me in a noob move when he got a partial on a non-Fortuned Eldrad with a S8 Strangler shot at some Avengers. Eldrad made his save though. Didn't let that happen again.
Turn 3 the Harlies got out of the Falcon that the Tyrant assaulted and moved/fleeted on a diagonal, with the Avatar moving toward them, so that when they got set to charge they were in the Fearless bubble for The Horror. Shooting got rid of all but one 6-man Stealer squad (and that one lone guy still). The Harlies cruising down the long board edge got out and went after the Shooty Fex, as the only things on the entire left half of the board at this point were that Fex and 2 Zoeys, so they were going to clear that part of the table and let the Falcon+Spiders claim 2 quarters. There was even a Zoey right next to him to consolidate into in case the Rends were hot (or, you know, slightly higher than average).
Combat was funny, as the Harlies attacking the Tyrant whiffed horribly, only putting one wound on him, and he wounded 4 in return, but I made 3 saves, so it was a drawn combat. The other Harlies put 2 wounds on the Fex and lost 1. Not terrible.
On his turn, shooting from the other Tyrant whittled down some Avengers, the fighty Fex attacked the Avatar (who had put a wound on him with Wailing Doom), and the one Stealer charged the 5 remaining Avengers in the closer group. The 6-man squad couldn't quite reach. One Zoey shot at the Spiders, killed two (luckily they didn't break), the other tried to zap a Falcon and took a Perils wound for his trouble. The Harlequins finished off the Tyrant and Fex, and the other Fex bounced off the Avatar (he only rolled 1's for his Crushing Claws, so 2 attacks a turn hitting on 5's against a rerolled 4+ is not going to get it done).
My next turn, the Harlequins that killed the Carnifex on the left went in for the Elite Fex, the ones that killed the tyrant went after the heavy Fex, and the 3 from the Falcon crept along the board edge into the last table quarter. In the rest of the game, his 6-man Genestealers ate through all the Avengers (though Defend slowed them down), the Harlequins+Avatar got the last 2 MCs other than the walking Tyrant (his general... no reason to kill it), and the Harlequins doubled back to kill the Genestealers while there was one last DA Exarch nobly holding them in combat, to keep them from killing Eldrad and costing me the General and highest point cost extra points. End of the game, he had a Tyrant controlling one table quarter, a Zoey "contesting" another (I didn't argue, I had two free and clear), and nothing else on the table. I had Eldrad alive, 2 table quarters to 1, and a Falcon in his deployment zone. He had his general alive, so 18 to 6.
So yeah, put one down for team ATL. It's a shame this fellow's list had already started converting to 5th edition, a battle between trifalcon Eldar and a really good Nidzilla is a fun game. Looks like this gentlemen's list dropped its firepower one tourney too early, I feel his pain.
Player-D played Warzonekos, and didn't get back to me with a report, but I know warzonekos won the game. Apparently there was some disagreement about getting more turns in or some such.
Player-E crushed his opposition beneath an endless green tide, as he does. I know he won, but don't know any details of the game.
On the KOS side, they ended up the round with 1 win, 1 loss and one tie, with the win and loss being vs. our guys. I think it's pretty cool that part of our BP contest was head to head. It's already apparent that with our larger numbers it'll be a bit of an uneven contest though (we actually have 6 guys here, there's a player I've never batrepped before, F I guess, whos got defensive Necrons, and he won his first game.)
The second Mission:
This is the titular Maul in the Mall. It's a lot like the worst of the 'Ard boys missions, but with some modifications that I think represent a distinct improvement. You take turns deploying, and the whole board is your deployment zone, save that you must be >6" away from enemy units. Absolutely everything (drop pods, daemons, whatever) must start on the board. The first round for both players has no assault phase. Everything except HQ units has sustained attack, and can come on from any board edge save the long board edge the player picks. There are 7 turns.
So...yeah, endless slaughter, with VP's as the mission objectives. Cue silliness.
My opponent:
Shrike Marines!
Shrike + his posse
Predator
Terminators w/2 assault cannons
Rhino borne tac squad
5 bikers
Dreadnaught
Devastators
some more marine stuff....
My assessment:
I've never seen a mismatch this bad before in my life. His army is basically a gunline thingy, the sort of foe you face in round 2 if you lose in round 1, while I've got Daemons that all get to start on the table. He might hold the score even for the first round, but then the story of the game will be khorne daemons charging everywhere, constantly.
The game:
It's actually worse than I imagined, the Soul Grinders crush everything, bloodcrushers, Heralds, etc, are charging power armor troops no matter where you look. And his response is...walking back on and being unable to shoot his heavy weapons, so he has to rapid fire something, and then get re-killed by the same khornate units. This mission was not written with Daemons in mind. I actually could have won without recycyling anything, but there's a really juicy dog charge that I take on the first round before I realize it. The guy is a good sport, as we both realize that the game is over when we read the mission so we play swiftly and move on to other stuff. I score 17 and he scores 5. Poor Shrike...all those powers and he can't charge on the first round.
Player-A's game:
Player A takes on Player B. (Ouch, that bites).
In the words of Player A:
Next round, Maul in the Mall: B's Eldar. I got first turn and immobilized one falcon, blew two weapons off another. Second turn I immobilized a second falcon and shot up some of his squads but didn't kill any. He was able to recycle one falcon on the second turn because it was immobile and all weapons destroyed. Third turn I downed the new falcon plus the last original one (immobile, and all had weapons left), then shot a his warp spiders and two guardian squads down to ineffective sizes. I backed up and castled to avoid damage and not let him recycle many units.
In the words of Player B:
Game 2, Player-A I'm sure you heard plenty about that one. I'd imagine he's writing a report anyway, but if he doesn't I can fill you in. It was closer than you'd imagine (only about 600 or so VPs, which would have been a smaller margin but I sent in Eldrad and the Avatar knowing the Deceiver would kill them, but hoping they could break some units in the meantime and try to pull a Hail Mary. It didn't happen.)
So yeah...4 falcons down in 3 rounds. Now that's a sendoff for the Necrons.
Player-D drew his game, but I don't have details on who he faced.
Player-E won his game, once again I've got no details. Ork Ork Ork!
KOS got 2 wins and a loss/tie I believe. Not sure precisely. Want to do a batrep for your club in a response, warzonekos?
The third mission:
Glimpse of things to come: This is basically a 5th edition mission with 4th edition rules. You each get an objective and you need to seize it from the enemy. 5th edition style deployment/go first rules.
My enemy:
Ultramarines (3 marines in one tourney? Am I really in the Southeast? I love this!)
Master hanging out in the back for leadership
chaplain w/5 man assault squad
10 man tac squad in rhino
10 man tac squad in rhino
Devastator squad w/lascannons
10 man tac squad w/las/plas
predator w/twin linked lascannons, 2 lascannon sponsons
razorback w/lascannon
Dreadnaught w/twin linked lascannon, missile launcher
My assessment:
He lacks a real way to get over to my side of the board and take my objective, if I can stop those 2 tac squads. Further, marine gunlines are going to have trouble dealing with a deep strike impact that heavily goes towards one side. I figure I ought to be able to concentrate my assault squads around the side that has his objective, while using my shooty stuff to strand his tac squads, insuring my objective goes unchallenged.
The game:
I get the wrong half of the army for the second time, but this time it works out. I drop dogs and horrors, do some unimpressive shooting. To counter, he sends the rhinos borne troops out to blast down some horrors, and his gunline shoots down some dogs and horrors. Then the soulgridners drop and pie plate his guys who are just out of the rhinos, and all bunched up. 18 marines down in 2 shots, while the Heralds and such begin to surround his objective. He fights hard to keep me out of his objective, but from here on out he never threatens mine, and ultimately a Soul Grinder is able to contest his, giving me the 2-zero win, 17 more battle points. An odd phenomenon of the game is that we only get 5 turns in, despite playing along at a good clip. I think it's because Daemons give you 6 full turns, and have none of the prelude of uneventful first rounds that assault armies sometimes do.
Player-A's game:
Last round, Nurgle marines. 2xNurgle princes w/ wings, 1xDefiler, 6xPlague Marines (7 strong a piece, varying weaponry). I won the roll for first deployment/first turn. I put my objective in a corner that was completely void of terrain, he put his almost straight across from me, but behind some woods.
I castled in my corner with warriors, immortals, and deceiver. Destroyers & heavies were closer to the center. He then lined up his rhinos on the left, with the PM's right behind them waiting to get in and zoom forward. One rhino had its squad sit on the objective instead.
He failed the sieze roll and I stunned one rhino and destroyed the other 4 that had their squads nearby. He didn't move, just shot the defiler but didn't kill anything. I then killed the last two rhinos and the defiler. He basically gave up at that point.
Ouch. Rhino-based armies must be dying to get to 5th. Losing the whole rhino fleet on turn 1 before they got in must have been demoralizing. Dude dinged Player-A for all his soft scores.
Player-B's game:
Game 3, a really friendly guy named ****, Had come in from DC. Said he was working in Atlanta last year and had come to the tourney, enjoyed it a lot so he came again. Dark Angels, doing list from memory:
Sammael in his flying Land Raider
3 5-man Deathwatch (Deathwing?) Termie squads, 1 AC and 1 Power Weapon
3 singleton Land Speeders with AC/HB
2 of those Ravenwing squads with 6 bikes (one of which had a Sgt with Power Weapon), split into combat squads, with a Land Speeder. One also had an Attack Bike
That was it. 12 Bikes, 1 Attack Bike, 15 Terminators, 5 Land Speeders, and Sammael. I can imagine it'd be hell if you can't deal with Terminators or massed AC fire, but other than the danger they posed to the Falcons, I wasn't overly worried. I had won the roll, so I knew that (barring him seizing the initiative) I'd be going first. My objective was way back, most of the way to my left, behind the only building on my side. Both DA squads, Eldrad and the Avatar were in the building. The Falcons were strung out, and the Warp Spiders were more center in a little scrap of ruins. He scouted all his bikes forward with his Speeders all hidden. He didn't manage to seize the initiative.
My first turn's shooting was brutal. The Warp Spiders and Falcons wiped out one bike squad, the front Avengers (only ones in range) got a 2nd, the last 2 Falcons killed a 3rd, and the Wailing Doom dropped one guy from the 4th (he had combat squadded them into 4 squads of 3). So when the smoke cleared he had 2 Bikes on the table, 1 attack bike, and his Speeders. The Warp Spiders rolled pitifully on their JSJ and ended up stranded. I ended up wishing I hadn't bothered trying to kill bikes with them, as they could do some damage to Land Speeders.
He DS'ed in 2 of the Terminator squads on the Teleport Homer on his last bike squad, so they ended up less than 12" from my Deployment zone. The front squad of Avengers (only one visible through terrain) was Fortuned, as was the Avatar. He had 3 Land Speeders that were hidden behind terrain off a good ways away, and they came out and annihilated the Warp Spiders. Oops, oh well. Sammael shot at the Avatar and did nothing, so he gave up on trying that. Everything else on that side (2 Land Speeders, bikes with a meltagun, 2 Termie squads) shot at Falcons. Most failed to glance... his rolls were hot like fire if he had been shooting at squads. He got at least two 6's to hit on every AC. But almost no 6's to glance. He did manage to tag one with a glancing 5 and drop it.
Turn 2, the Dire Avengers walked close enough to be able to shoot at one Land Speeder and Bladestormed it, took it down. A Falcon that had gotten shaken hid behind terrain. The one that got Immobilied (it never got shaken though) shot down a 2nd Speeder. The Harlies got out of the Immoblized Falcon and went after a Termie squad, and the Avatar went after the other. I left the 2 bikes alone as they were a couple inches from the Termies, so if the Harlequins went crazy on rends they'd have something to consolidate into. The Harlequins killed 2 Terminators but took no wounds back (odd), and he lost another to the No Retreat wound. The Avatar killed 3 and no one swung back on him. His other Termie squad didn't come in until turn 5, so at this point he's at 3 Speeders, Sammael, and the attack bike and two regular bikes. He drops a 2nd Falcon (destroyed this time) and I get a little worried. 4 of the Harlequins inside die. He doesn't shoot at all at the Falcon that's hiding. He tried to take out the one that was immobilized and didn't even glance it. Combat saw the end of both Termie squads. On my next turn the Avatar waltzed toward Sammael and the Harlequins went after the 2 remaining bikes (they had cruised up for a melta-range shot at an immobilized Falcon and missed). The mobile Falcon shot down another Land Speeder. Eldrad gave Sammael a nasty surprise when he hit him with Eldritch Storm and got a glancing hit (though it was only Shaken), and then spun him around to face backward. Unfortunately, being a noob for the 2nd time that tournament, I had briefly forgotten about Eldritch Storm when I fired the Wailing Doom, so I did the Doom first, and rolled a 4 for Armor Penetration. Not enough against that side armor, but if I had waited until it got spun around, it would have gotten the back armor. Oh well. The Immobilized Falcon shot at his back armor and missed. Shame, pretty much missed the one big chance to knock Sammael down.
Nothing else much happened the rest of the game. The mobile Falcon dropped off the Harlies to guard the castle and then went for the last objective. Eldrad blew up another Speeder with Storm, and that was about the last thing that got destroyed on either side. I made one mistake in waiting a turn longer than I should have to start sending the Falcon down there, as it occurred to me that if he had moved Sammael 24" on the turn he got shaken, he could park on the objective and I wouldn't be able to Tank Shock him off. Now, doing that would have necessitated not getting SMF the last turn or two, and a Speeder isn't all that big, so it's possible I could have shot him down and/or contested anyway, but I was glad he didn't try so it wasn't an issue. The 2nd mistake I made was thinking that he might try to Tank Shock Sammael onto my objective in the last turn and just try to shoot down my last Falcon. I had the Avatar, the 2 Harlies out of the destroyed Falcon, and the other Harlie squads all lined up in rows, to each try to stop him with a Death or Glory if he tried. I'm sure all that shuffling looked very unnecessary to my opponent, who was probably aware that Land Speeders are not, in fact, tanks. So I didn't even have to worry.
In the end, although he sent a crapload of shots at the Falcons, the game really came down to the fact that he pretty much lost the ability to get me off my objective in turns 1 and 2, and he didn't manage to stop all the Falcons so I got his too (he had nothing contesting it by the end). So, 17 of 18 points to his 6 or 7.
All in all exactly what I expected. The army was pretty much auto-win in Alpha objective missions against non-Necrons. And in the 2nd round I got the convergence of every possible awful thing that could happen. The Maul in the Mall mission. WITH Sustained Assault on everything. AND a table edge the Harlequins couldn't come in on. AND it was against Necrons. AND it wasn't just Necrons, it was Decepticrons. AND it was played by Player-A, AND he got to deploy first. AND he got to go first. And did I mention the Necrons? Not sure I could have done too much different than what I did. I shouldn't have scuttled the Falcon to bring it back on, as it didn't do enough to justify 200 extra VPs, but I was just having to clutch at straws and hope some Morale checks would go my way or something. It wasn't enough. All in all a fun tournament though. Decent send-off to 4th edition.
Player-D lost his last game, rough tourney for him.
Player-E's crushing streak finally came to a stop, taking on a CSM army that ordnance pen 6'd his battle wagon fulla boys on round 1. From what I heard it was a great game.
Warzonekos ended his unbeaten streak as well. Apparently he was winning, but the enemy falcon-tank shocked him off the objectives in the last round. Now there's something I won't miss about 4th edition.
So Player-A went 3-0-0, I went 2-1-0, B went 2-1-0, D went 0-2-1 and E went 2-0-1. F (the Necron player) went 1-1-1. We got more points in our top 3 than KOS (due primarily to numbers), but they've made noises about assembling the throng for the Exterminatus, so we'll have to defend at our home game.
Demons had a rough landing, losing that first round, but I'm not going to judge them until I see how they do at a 5th edition tournament. They've always done well in our 5th edition practice games.
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Bretonnians 
I do what the voices in my wifes head say... 
