Stormin' Stompa
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This event had a turnout of 36 (only 25 last time), and was great fun. Four 1000 point games on HLAF-TABLES - that is, 4x3.
EDIT: My list as follows;
FARSEER; doom, guide, spirit stones, witnessing, singing spear 133
10 DIRE AVENGERS; exarch, dual catapults, bladestorm 162
10 DIRE AVENGERS; exarch, dual catapults, bladestorm 162
10 DIRE AVENGERS; exarch, defend, diresword 167
7 FIRE DRAGONS - exarch, crack shot, dragon's breath flamer 129
WAVE SERPENT; linked eldar missile launcher, spirit stones 130
FIRE PRISM 115
998
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36 Fire warriors
Commander with airburst and plasmagun
3 Broadsides w/ whatever grants split targetting
Some shield drones and markerlights throughout
16 or so Kroot with Shaper (outflank)
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PITCHED BATTLE; KILLPOINTS
2:3 LOSS
I knew I was in for a bad day when my first game with this lists was against a camping Tau army. He deployed in a large piece of crater/barricade that contained his whole army bar half a FW squad and his off-board kroot.
The broadsides immobilised my Serpent and scored an Armament Destroyed on the Fire Prism first turn, despite concealment. With some absolutely garbage saves, the most exposed squad of Bladestormers was torn apart by Fire Warriors.
I left the useless point-bait Prism where it was and scattered off my EML shots from the downed Serpent. My Fire Dragons could only disembark, and as they were stuck between the table edge and some terrain
, they had to go through the terrain... and rolled poorly. There was good solid cover just over on my opponent's side of the board, so I had my remaining DA squads advance behind that with relative safety.
The Broadside picked the same targets and wrecked the Serpent. The Prism was now immobilised too. Only two DAs fell to shooting, but the Kroot had arrived on the side nearest my Defend DA squad, and got a charge in. A few DAs fell, opposed to 5-6 Kroot.
The kroot held, and I charged them with my Farseer/Bladestorm squad. The Farseer and Exarchs at WS 5 ensured plenty of hits got in, and the squad was killed except the shaper... who failed morale and was destroyed. The FDs hid - I doubted they would make it far enough to be useful. I was badly crippled. The Bladestorming Eldar had wasted this and the next turn's shooting by barely underestimating the range to the nearest FW squad, but I intended to hide them too... the two DA squad consolidated further, and into cover.
The Prism popped next turn, and I was further down on points. I out of sight of all but six Fire Warriors, who bagged a kill or two. The commander's airburst scattered off.
I continued through the cover, and got a doom/guided
volley into a Fire Warrior squad, killing six.
Next turn the commander got a solid airburst shot but I passed most of my saves. The broadsides took the defend squad down to two men, ignoring concealment, yada yada...
A 2-man and 7-man DA squad each remained in contention. I had saved my bladestorm until now to maximise my fire, and took the FW squad I'd damaged earlier down to a single warrior and a drone of some sort. I'd killed everything that could see me, and I'd moved out of range of the broadsides' secondary weapons.
Commander failed to achieve anything, nothing else could target me, and I hid... not much else I could do.
Game ended... if another turn I could have survived the following turn, and then knocked a doom/guide/storm into the rather exposed commander suit, for a draw. Awesome.
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10 Horrors w/ Icon
10 Horrors
Bloodthirster
Skulltaker
Soulgrinder w/ phlegm and tongue
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PITCHED BATTLE; CENTER OBJECTIVE
This game was great for me... kind of frustrating for my opponent, but that's how it is when Daemons backfire, I guess. It was actually my first game against Daemons.
Opponent split his force into Horrors/Horrors/Soulgrinder and Bloodthirster/Skulltaker. He rolled and got the horrors, which he hadn't preferred. The icon horrors came down straight on the objective, and with the icon he placed the second squad 6" closer to my army. The Soulgrinder came in behind some cover.
I shifted a little, but had deployed hard against my table edge behind cover to minimise his strike power. I put my left flank forward with a serpentful of Fire Dragons, which disembarked in cover. Five of fix fusion guns were within 6", but I rolled the one at 7" first... Explodes result, lost a Fire Dragon... great fun. EMLs take down a couple of Horrors, and Fire Prism probably missed. It always does.
Skulltaker arrives next to a building.
Horrors nearest my line advances on and shoots at Fire Dragons, killing three. Leadership test ok. Can't recall what the other horror squad did, possibly missed with bolt of tzeentch or whatever that is...
"Have you ever been bladestormed?" I asked as I measured range to Skulltaker. My opponent shook his head slowly, and I grimly nodded as I counted out my shots. Skulltaker turned into a fine red mist. My other bladestorm squad moved toward the nearest Horrors (Doomed), and guide/bladestormed them out of the game, but not before the Fire Dragons realigned and put a crack-shot heavy flamer into them. Fire Prism takes a nasty chunk out of the other Horrors, and EML takes one more.
Still no bloodthirster. Horrors knock off the EML-turret with their spell-bolt thing, while retreating.
Fire Dragons re-embarked Seprent, and jumped over the piece of cover the horros had moved around, but I cleaned up the unit nicely with the rest of my firepower. I didn't have any other targets, so I had my diresword avengers continue to advance, and ran into better positions with my bladestorm units that couldn't fire anyway.
Bloodthirster arrives, dead on the centre objective. I don't think he does much else.
Obviously I Doom the 'thirster. Fire dragons cause several wounds, but they're saved, as is the single wound from the Fire Prism. My bladestorm has reset, so I manage to score enough sixes to take him down. Massacre!
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10 Bloodletters
10 Bloodletters
Bloodthirster
6 Bloodcrushers
Soulgrinder w/ phlegm
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DAWN OF WAR; TRIPLE OBJECTIVES
This was messy. I'm not going to go into great detail, but I was eventually wiped out. A back of 'letters and Soulgrinder arrived, and I managed to sort out most of the 'letters with a bladestorm/doomandorguide, but failed to pop the bloodcrusher... just took off a weapon. I maintained a defensive position.
Unfortunately, everything else arrived the next turn. The reduced bloodletter squad had advanced with its remaining one or two members, so I charged it with the avengers that had bladestormed and took them out. Unfortunately the bloodcrushers were advancing toward this unit as well, but they were firmly in the cover of a land raider wreck.
My fire dragons now had their turn to fail to destroy the bloodcrusher, which rampaged about, having its way with everything... another Singing Spear failed to do anything...
In the last two turns neither of us had any troops left, but he still had his thirster and grinder, as well as one bloodcrusher. I had a Fire Prism with no Fire Prism, and my Wave Serpent. I tried to evade so I could swoop in last turn and force a draw, but one was killed by the winged thirster and the other ate the phlegm-cannon.
Daemons player went on to achieve four massacres in the end...
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Farseer w/ eldritch and guide
14 Guardians w/ brightlance
14 Guardians w/ brightlance
6 striking scorpions... possibly with exarch
Warwalker w/ starcannon and scatterlaser
Warwalker w/ dual scatterlaser
2 Reapers and exarch w/ shuricannon
Falcon w/ scatter
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PITCHED BATTLE; KILL-POINTS; SPECIAL RULE - MOST VALUABLE UNIT WORTH 2 KP
This was an odd game. The field was pretty much empty, tough we each had a solid bit of cover on one flank, and a long building/ruin on the other flank that stretched over 3/4 of the field.
First turn my Fire prism was popped, despite being in the far corner, and the explosion killed a couple of nearby avengers in the farseer's unit. Fortunately for me, my opponent kept advancing, and he had deployed his Reapers in a position to climb his piece of cover, but spent the first three turns making terrible difficult terrain rolls.
My Serpent kept getting shaken and was eventually immobilised, but I let the Dragons and other Bladestorm squad advance into the long ruin on my left flank. His Scorpions had infiltrated into there, but I managed to get a heavy flamer into them before they could react to me. My seer rushed forward to the Falcon which had advance to mid-field to get my hiding Serpent, and the singing spear immobilised it... but it hadn't moved.
The scorpions rolled toerrible movement and fell short of the charge, so I shot'em and charged the remaining one into oblivion.
By the last turn we still had only a killpoint each, but both his vehicles were immobilised (the walkers had been glanced into uselessness by volleys from my avengers). He had gone first, so in my last turn I annihilated one guardian squad (doomed), took the other below 25% and routed them, finally popped the falcon (I'd been retreat-spear-charging it for a couple turns). That yielded 2 KP, putting me solidly ahead, and though the last turn was rolled up, there was no time left.
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In total I rolled about two scatter dice that weren't hit results, which was most useful in the close match against the Khorne Daemons. The FDs didn't do as well as they usually do, but the Flamer was very useful as well. As usual, doom/guide/storm was absolutely devastating, but tough to play without transports. They're still quite viable, but as I've discussed with some on Dakka, they're not as well protected. My tanks took an absolute whipping in most of the games. I deployed well in my opinion, except perhaps in the final game... but that open field would have been a slaughter if my opponent had kept back, no matter what I did.
Unit of the day was Bladestorm Avengers with Farseer. They made the Tau game a close one, the farseer helped my second game greatly, and in the thurd game they split but stayed in the same cover... and the Avengers did very well against the letters and bloodcrushers. In the last game I had three left with the farseer, having saved a disproportionate number of focussed scatterlaser wounds.
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2000pts (Knights of blood)