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I initially planned to bring a nice solid list to the GT. Three Land Raiders, two daemon princes w/ Lash and 3 big units of noise marines in the raiders.

But, as I was getting things ready, I realized that my real goal wasn't to win the tournament, it was to win in the appearance
categories. So, my list started to morph. I didn't think a spam-style list would be able to display enough cool stuff to score appearance points. So, out went one raider, and in went... a chaos dreadnought. And out came some noise marines, exchanged for summoned daemons. I had a fairly non-competative list. So, I was there to play for fun, rather than to compete on the top tables.

Of course, I forgot to take any pictures of my army. There are a few of game three.


Round One - Justin Cook's Tyranids

5 Objectives, Pitched Battle

2x Hive Tyrant, +S, +BS, devourers, venom cannon, 2 tyrant guard w/ implant attacks
4x Dakkafexes
2x sniperfexes
2x 8 spinegaunts
2x 8 fleshgaunts
2x 6 genestealers w/ scuttlers, tendrils

I draw the only godzilla army that I recall seeing at the GT, and have no illusions about being able to win this one. I try to take out his troop choices, but failing early saves (obliterators wiped out by one venom cannon volley, both princes dying to lone devourer volleys), there is really little that I can do. I get tabled.



Round Two - Scott Greig's Orks

Kill points, Spearhead

Big Mek w/ KFF, kombi-rokkit, ammo runt
3x 4 lootas + big-shoota mek
6x 30 slugga boyz +powerklaw
2x killa kan w/ grotzooka
1x 2 kannons w/ 3 ammo runts

I go for the easy kill points first, scoring the kans and kannons. I use the Lash princes to isolate a unit of boyz so that I can jump it with all the noise marines - I lose a couple in the process. I repeat this with a second set, and lose my first unit in the fight. Meanwhile, the dreadnought decided it would be better to charge headlong into the orks than to fire templates at them, so he held up the other flank for a couple of turns before he was dragged down. I lost a daemon prince in an exchange, but she'd taken out one of the loota squads in the process, so that was a push. I ended the game with two below-half units hiding in land raiders, the obliterators hiding behind them, and the other prince pushing back whatever the closest unit of boyz happened to be each turn. So, I lost 4 units, he lost 5, minor win to me. If this was victory points, I'd have lost the game.



Round Three - Brian Carlson's Black Templars

Capture and Control, Pitched Battle

Marshal w/ Terminator Armour, Lightning Claws
Champion w/ Prefered Enemy Vow
6 terminators, 4 w/ Lightning Claws, 2 w/ thunder hammers/Storm shield, furious charge
2x 5 initiates, 3 neonates in drop pods (meltagun, power weapon)
2x 10 initiates, 9 neophytes w/ lascannon, meltagun
1x 5 initiates
1x Landspeeder w/ multimelta, heavy flamer
1x bike squadron (3 bikes w/ melta guns, 1 attack bike w/ multimelta)


Brian and I teamed up for the doubles tournament the night before. We both took armies that looked better than they played, and both ended up tied for battle points and overall points at the end of the tournament.

I cannot recall who placed the first objective, but we ended up with the two objectives directly across from each other. I had no idea how fast templars would cross the table between falling forwards and running. This is definately his advantage.

Deployment photos:
His deployment:


Table:


My deployment:


I'm hoping that my dreadnought will finally prove useful and tie up one of the really big squads that he has without powerfists. But, he kills it right off the bat. We get into a big scrum down my side of the field that he ends up grinding out as I'm watching my daemon prince and powerfist miss repeatedly.



But, he's pretty much all over my side, so I need to get over to his side and take his lightly guarded objective. A few stray lascannon shots killed a terminator or two, and they broke. My raider escorts them as they fall back over 36" total.

Right before his termies broke:


Meanwhile, my last daemon prince and noise marine squad kill the units he left guarding his home objective, so at the end of the game, we've basically traded places. It comes down to victory points, and he's up 186 on me. He had dropped one of his drop pods onto his home objective, and in removing it so that it doesn't contest the objective, it exploded and failing a save meant that my noise marines went below half strength. So, he gets a very minor win, and I get a very minor loss.



Round Four - Joshua Smith's Space Wolves

5 Objectives, Spearhead

Day two starts out with me down on table 24. This time, it's drop pod marines. As long as he doesn't get everything on the first turn, I should be ok.

Wolf Lord w/ terminator armour, frost axe, storm bolter, wolf stuff, Termiator Retinue, Drop Pod
Wolf guard battle leader w/ terminator armour and wolf stuff, terminator retinue, Drop Pod
Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armour
6 wolf scouts w/ meltagun, 2 plasma pistols, 2 power weapons, meltabombs
2x wolf guys in drop pods, terminator sgts w/ lightning claws, 1 meltagun, 2 plasma pistols, 2 powerfists
Land Speeder Tornado


We end up with the five objectives spread out one in each corner, and one right on the middle of the table. I get the first turn, and so have two movement phases, and move everything to the middle of the table, claiming the center, and giving me the mobility to go for whichever of the other objectives he wants to fight over. He gets all his troops and none of his terminators in his first drop. They do minimal damage on landing, and after the first turn, they're reduced to two men standing, and two units running. The terminators come in, but it's a simple matter to use lashes and tackle them one at a time. I end up with the massacre.



Round Five - Leo Depasquale's Eldar

Kill Points, Dawn of War

Farseer, Runes of Warding, Spirit Stones, Guide, Fortune, Singing Spear
Avatar
10 Banshees, exarch w/ executioner, acrobatic. Star Engine Wave Serpent w/ brightlances
10 Scorpions, exarch w/ claw, shadowstrike, claw, Star Engine Wave Serpent w/ Brightlances
10 Guardians w/ brightlance
2x 10 Guardians w/ EML
10 Dire Avengers
2x Fire Prism w/ holofield

We're on table 15 for this game. I look over Leo's list and comment that I hope he can kill me quickly so I can go and watch the Bears game. I figure with the fire prisms and brightlances, my raiders could be in some trouble.

But, I deploy first and take the center with my prince. He's forced to bunker tightly into the right corner. Nightfighting works to my favour on the first turn, and his brightlance serpents are left in the open. I drop the scorpion's ship and remove the guns from the banshees, as well as watching as my insane dreadnought immobilizes one of the two fire prisms, firing twice at it.

He runs the banshee's serpent right up into my lines with the star engines. I respond by surrounding it with oblits, two units of marines and a prince. Shooting doesn't down it, so we all assault, and it explodes, leaving the banshees free to assault the following turn, and leaving my guys clumped up for a fire prism shot. Guess this isn't 4th ed anymore. He vapourizes the noise marines with the prism shot, and the banshees make a dent in my other big squad of sonic blaster guys.

I pile everything else into them and kill them off though, and remove the gun from the prism that just killed my guys, and stun it about 9 inches from my dread. I figure that's a KP next turn, but he malfunctions and tries to shoot it instead...

At the end of the game, I've killed banshees, two wave serpents and a squad of guardians, he's killed my unit of noise marines, one prince and the dreadnought has lost an arm and a leg fighting the avatar in combat. But, that's two-to-one in my favour, so that's another massacre. If I'd been paying more attention to the bonus objectives, I'd have units in his deployment zone too, but I had stopped moving them at that point and kinda just wanted to watch the Bears (who crushed Detroit 34-7).




All told, at the end of the day, I score 2nd Best Appearance, behind Will Merydyth's Tau, and end up for a 4-way tie for 10th place.


Overall thoughts:

Land Raiders are strong. Having troops hop out that can shoot 2 S4 shots and follow that up with 3 S4 attacks at I5 is good. I like the interaction between the noise marines and the raiders. Dreadnoughts are, as everyone told me, a liability. I had at least three occassions where if the Dread had done what I'd have wanted I'd have been in good shape, but each time these situations came up, I failed the insanity test. It wasn't a matter of shooting my guys, it was a matter of lost opportunities.

The Lash Princes did some things really well, but seem very vulnerable. That may have been my dice-rolling though - when you have 4 wounds and a 3+ save, taking 5 saves shouldn't kill you.

Sounds like it was fun, great reports!

Great report.

G

So you beat an Ork army-there goes my thesis of Ork invincibility. Many congradulations for you!

Against Nidzilla I wonder if you regretted not taking on the Hive Tyrants first. My son plays Nidzilla, and once the tyrants are gone is there any threat at all to the Landraiders? The Landraiders could plink 3-4 hits a turn into the Tyrants-They don't have an invulnerable save. Would it have been worth it to deep strike the Obliterators-the Tyrants and guard hate plasma guns as well....

Well, the problem there is two-fold.

1) The tyrants have the tyrant guard with them. The tyrant guard are behind the gaunts, so they get a 4+ cover save. The Tyrant cannot be singled out, so the tyrant is effectively getting a 4+ cover save against all incoming fire.

2) The sniperfexes can glance a landraider on a roll of 4+ with their venom cannons, and all the carnifexes can kill it in assault, so removing the tyrants doesn't make the land raiders safe.

Orks are far from impossible to beat. At adepticon, my teammate and I tabled a 200+ ork army (at 2k points) using non-sisters Witchhunters (including several squads of arbites - 10 points for a shotgun...) You just have to know how to do it. I think one of the bigger problems is that, even still, many people haven't played against a full-on horde and aren't sure how to approach it.

I initially planned to bring a nice solid list to the GT. Three Land Raiders, two daemon princes w/ Lash and 3 big units of noise marines in the raiders.

But, as I was getting things ready, I realized that my real goal wasn't to win the tournament, it was to win in the appearance
categories. So, my list started to morph. I didn't think a spam-style list would be able to display enough cool stuff to score appearance points. So, out went one raider, and in went... a chaos dreadnought. And out came some noise marines, exchanged for summoned daemons. I had a fairly non-competative list. So, I was there to play for fun, rather than to compete on the top tables.

Congratulations, nice to see an EC player doing well.
However, I don't understand your move from a competitive to a semi-competitive army.

The competative army had a lot of marines in it, and not a lot else.

When you're looking to score appearance points, it is beneficial to give the judges more total types of thing to look at. Large centerpiece models go a long way to drawing votes, and a chaos dread w/ hand-painted banner fits that bill. Likewise, three units of marines will tend to just blend together. But, mixing it up with summoned daemons gives another type of painting that the judges can appreciate.

It's kind of the same thing as entering a painting contest. You have to both give the judges a reason to vote for you, and not give them reasons to vote against you. Generally, being clean and tidy is enough to avoid votes against, but votes for, you have to have more 'neat stuff' than the other entrants.

Okay, now I understand your policy selecting an army with more variety.

Good report. It's fun to read these...not having been to any tourneys, or, really, being able to in the near future, unless they're in the Ft. Lauderdale or Orlando area. Money is tight..so, a trip to Vegas or Chicago...not in the budget. We've got the local 'Ard Boyz semi-finals at my FLGS...so, I might go watch that.

Blood

Nice report, Redbeard. I am dying to see your army up close. I can't believe how quickly you finish those great projects. Jealous.

I would also like to hear more about the Team Tournament from the night before.

- Blackbone