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I'm back. Had a great experience last weekend in Mesa, AZ. The tourney was totally funky. It was run exactly how I'd run it. No comp scores, no sportsmanship scores, staff judged painting, painting competition and tournament results were completely separate. But, and don't take any offense Romeo, the missions were undertested, confusing, and biased.

Part of being a tourney player is adapting to surprises, and so that's what I did. I had 5 great opponents, zero TFGs. I climbed my way to the top tables, where the lists were tuned and the competition was tight (but surprisingly friendly) and got knocked down to table 6 for my final game.

Here's my mechvet list

CCS 4x melta chimera heavy flamer
CCS 4x melta chimera heavy flamer

PBS 2 extra psykers chimera heavy flamer

vets 3x plasma chimera heavy flamer
vets 3x plasma chimera heavy flamer
vets 3x plasma chimera heavy flamer

banewolf heavy flamer smoke
banewolf heavy flamer smoke

3x hydra
manticore
manticore


I wouldn't change the list, its about as tuned as i can get it for 1750.


Game one. basically a kill points pitched battle. Everything was worth 2kp except dedicated transports that were only worth 1. The twist was that any unit could deploy using the deepstrike rules.

Out of 50+ guys, I pull a hard nob biker army. His list looked something like this

biker boss
biker boss

kommandos snikrot

grots
7 nob bikers
7 nob bikers

2 koptas rokkits and buzzsaws
2 koptas rokkits and buzzsaws


he wins the roll to go first, and deep strikes both of his nob bikers in position to make two first turn triple charges on me. It'll be a long uphill battle and I'm about to be playing for fun all weekend. But, I siezed the initiative. The game instantly went from uphill battle to freefall.

I put my manticores on his nob bikers and scooped one unit and failed my PBS on the other unit, but took it down to like three models. I also killed off all of his deffkoptas. We had to keep going to see how many victory points he could score before being tabled, so once I killed off snikrot and the last of hte nobs we scooped it. Undertested wacky mission accounts for a 20 minute game. My opponent was a trooper about it. he knew the moment I made my seize that it was over. We had to time to play a real game of 40k afterwards, which was a much closer fought game, likely going to him if he could protect his second nob biker unit from being scooped.

Game 2. otherwise known as the mission i can't win.

Blackmoor and I were chatting before game 2, and he was lamenting the fact that he'd probably have to face me at some point today, and he was afraid of my list. As we were talking about the missions, he said "well I'd love to play you in mission 2, then I'll have a real chance to beat you."

As they announced the pairings I heard my name and I didn't catch who i paired against but then I heard a bellowing "HA!" from across the store, and I knew I drew Evil Allan.

I'm sure blackmoor is going to writeup his tourney batrep, and he took better pictures. But a quick recap. The mission was pisk up a football in the middle of the table with any model and run it off your enemies deployment zone. The mission came down to me walling off his avatar with three layers of chimeras, and holding him in combat with a refractor field save until the turns ran out. Yay for us, both 1-0-1.

Game 3. I played against horde orks

His list was two massive units of slugga boys, a battleagon full of slugga boys, 2 trukk boys, 2 killa kans a deffdread, a big mek with kustom force field and 2 full sized dakka defkopta units. The mission was another wonky one. basically it was ripped right out of 4th edition. Table quarters are worth 250 victory points, you don't need troops to score them, and you add victory points from units killed to fid out who won. The other catch was the first three turns were nightfight.

I have known about this mission for a few weeks, and i had my game plan all set up. I deployed my manticores and my hydras WAY back in my deployment zone, and had a net of chimeras deployed way far forward. My two banewolves were lined up out of incoming fire, but ready to jump on his front slugga screen.

I'm not sure he knew exactly how searchlights worked, and he had a lot of confidence going into the game. He had first turn and scouted his deffkoptas up for shots and charges. I lost a banewolf and a CCS chimera, and then the rout was on. I took out all of his koptas with plasma, multi-laser and melta, and then spotted his boy unit for my heavy support. He seemed really phased by the fact that he didn't know I could do that. I killed 16 boys from that unit and said go.

He moved everything up a little bit, and moved his other big unit into cover in a table edge I wouldn't be able to get to. All his rokkits missed and so he said 'go'. I moved my chimeras to just out of charge range of his walkers while still being close enough to likely spotlight for them. I took out the trukks and boys with hydra and melta and multi-laser. The remaining banewolf and a couple chimeras flared up to the weakend ork unit on foot and laid 4 souffles on them, taking them down to about 5 models. i hit them with a weaken resolve, and he just picked them up in frustration. My opponent was holding it together all right, we had been hanging out earlier and I like the guy a lot, but he was pretty phased and the beating he was taking.

So the game just went on and I got 3 table quarters and all of his army except the boy unit he dug in with.

Game 4. Mundar's Logan drop pods.

This mission was a secret to us all before we set up. then it was revealed to be on a table with zero terrain. My opponent just about conceded right there, I wished that he had, because he gave me a real beating. i don't think he'll mind if I just link his blog with our batrep on it, to save me some typing time.

http://bloodbathnbeyond.blogspot.com/

It was game 4 if you have a hard time finding it.


Game 5. Evan's fateweaver/kugath list. So I hop down from table 2 to table 6, to play a 'just for fun' game. Which I am always kinda happy when that happens in a tourney, I'd have loved to have stayed on table 2 or go up to 1 for game 5. But once you take that loss, it really can take the pressure off.

Evan's list was fateweaver, kugath, 2 units of plaguebearers, 2 units of horrors, 1 unit of flamers, 1 nurgle prince with armor wings and breath, and one unit of screamers.

I won the roll and gave him first turn in a straight up 5 objective seize ground pitched battle deployment. His wrong wave came in, but after that roll he got hot for about three turns. Changeling made my plasma gunners shoot at the PBS chimera and blowing its multi-laser off. My manticores could not get a hit on his hidden screamers, and somehow he destroyed two of my three hydras with the unit of flamers. (all three of them could touch two with their flamer templates, he got 3 glances and two immobilizes.)

My manticores also got five shots the next turn and scattered all 5 way off of a plaguebearer unit out in the open. he got really hot on 5+ versus plasma and banewolf, and I was starting to look like I was in trouble. he just needed to stay hot with his bolts and I was going to lose.

Fortunately, he got ice cold on bolts, I was able to stabilize, and a devastating turn 4 and 5 from me ended up taking off all four of his troop choices. by the end of turn 5 he only had fateweaver and kugath up. I only had one mechvet unit left, and I placed it right in the center of two objectives, out of charge range of fateweaver, and hoped i could juke him on the last turn.

Two turns of my entire army and fateweaver is completely unscathed, but i expected as much. I walled off kugath so he couldn't participate in the blocking, and headfaked to the objective on my right. fateweaver was forced to land next to that objective to contest it and had one more chance to bolt me. Hit, pen, weapon destroyed.... I'll take it.

So bottom of turn 7, I turn my chimera, blast 12" towards the other objective, spin, debark, and I had shrewdly placed a CCS behind the wall, ready to talk the vets into the endzone. Move, move, move passes on an 8... i roll three dice and get 2,1,6 for my run result. I probably needed a 3 or 4 to make it, but that move, move, move, sealed it.

Evan was an amazing sport, he was a youngster but had great poise, and was always laid back the whole game. there wasn't anything he could do to counter my last move, but he did his best to try it.


Ok, so that was it. 3-1-1. Romeo came over and asked me to set my army up on its display base after game 5 because I was a finalist for the painting competition. That was an awesome feeling to have that going for me. I've won best painted at an RTT before, but I haven't been that close in a 60 man tourney before, and that was really cool.

Thanks for reading. sorry the batreps were real quick and abrupt. If you are curious about my unit analysis after action report, or want a more detailed batrep of any of the games, let me know and I'll post that.

Wow, I can't believe the empty-table game. That's a real shame.

Otherwise it looks like a good time. Take more pics next time

Redbeard wrote:Wow, I can't believe the empty-table game. That's a real shame.

Otherwise it looks like a good time. Take more pics next time

haha, I have pics from game 1-3 at home. Camera was full by the time i got to sundays games. I'll upload them tonight

No Tau Shep?
I'm disappointed. :(


Anyway, great report. Grats on the high finish.

Sounds like you made a good show of it anyway. I really wish I had been able to attend. My cousin (B. templar, think he was running triple vindicator) was there and wanted me to go, I just couldn't swing it this year.

Hopefully they will clean up the missions next year. It is most definately an art to make sure they are balanced.

Shotgun wrote:Sounds like you made a good show of it anyway. I really wish I had been able to attend. My cousin (B. templar, think he was running triple vindicator) was there and wanted me to go, I just couldn't swing it this year.

Hopefully they will clean up the missions next year. It is most definately an art to make sure they are balanced.

When in doubt, it would be nice if they just used the missions out of the book. They might not be super exciting, but at least they are thoroughly play-tested and relatively balanced.

What I like about the shootout rule-set aside from the poor missions was the actual W/L/T scoring system instead of the silly GT Massacre/Narrow Victory system that GW uses. Although they should have just done 3 for a win, 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss. Why they did 15/9/5 doesn't really make sense. I also like that there is no comp at all and that the paint score is entirely separate.

Fix the missions so they don't completely bastardize the game of 40k and you've got yourself a perfect tournament system.

What a joke. This is why I favor more standardization of scenarios for tournaments; three or four of the five scenarios were ridiculous "screw you" missions. I would not be happy if I had paid money to go to this event.

I really liked how they did the judging and scoring, I just wasn't a fan of the wonky scenarios.

Also bummed I couldn't finish painting my junk in time.. Just as well though, I don't think a single picture was taken of any of my games.

And Shep, I'm still thanking whatever god was listening that day that you didnt have a inquisitor+mystics. That would have been brutal.

Nice battle rep man. Oh how I do enjoy these

Wow, congrats on placing decently with such a horrid list. No offense but where are your vet heavy weapons? How do you win any games having to run across the board with your chimeras? Bane wolfs? Really? All that plasma? Good thing you played Nob Bikers or those two units of PBS wouldve been wasted the entire tourney.

Sorry I just dont see a competitive list there....Dakkatactics at their finest I guess hehe.

PanamaG wrote:Wow, congrats on placing decently with such a horrid list. No offense but where are your vet heavy weapons? How do you win any games having to run across the board with your chimeras? Bane wolfs? Really? All that plasma? Good thing you played Nob Bikers or those two units of PBS wouldve been wasted the entire tourney.

Sorry I just dont see a competitive list there....Dakkatactics at their finest I guess hehe.

I don't know if this is some kind of joke, or this is a serious post?

vet heavy weapons? Do you actually stand still with your chimeras while people auto-hit them in close combat? Banewolves? Yes, the vehicle that wounds all models on a 2+ and has ap3. Oh and can move 12" and lay out two templates onto infantry units, getting hit on 6s in the following CC.

All that plasma? Should I have just had 17 meltaguns? Is that what your advice to me would be? Or do you not think that my 12 heavy flamers is enough flame template?

And two units of PBS? Check the list again, it has one unit of PBS 6 strong.

I didn't "have to run across the board" in any game. 3x hydras, 6x multi-lasers, 2x manticores and a soulstorm/weaken resolve outshot every opponent I faced. They came to me... and when they did I used "all that plasma" and my 8x meltaguns to finish them off. And I used my MOBILE chimeras to not get punked out in CC.

'Dakkatactics'? I'll just check out your "tech" next tourney I guess.

PanamaG wrote:Wow, congrats on placing decently with such a horrid list. No offense but where are your vet heavy weapons? How do you win any games having to run across the board with your chimeras? Bane wolfs? Really? All that plasma? Good thing you played Nob Bikers or those two units of PBS wouldve been wasted the entire tourney.

Sorry I just dont see a competitive list there....Dakkatactics at their finest I guess hehe.

Read more carefully before you post. There was one PBS with 2 extra bodies.

You really think 3 heavy weapons on troops that are likely to want to move for at least 1/3 of game turns are going to make or break a list?

Why would he try to win by running across the board with chimeras? I am sure they were there for clean up and scoring objectives. The rest of the list kills stuff.

Have you ever played with a bane wolf? I happen to like vendettas more but the bane wolf is a solid tank at a reasonable price.

I'm pretty sure he's trolling you, Shep, or else he's one of those who have fallen completely for the melta myth. I would definitely stick with plasguns on those Veterans.

Yeah, ignore him.

Anyway, I enjoy your brief description of the 2nd game. To me, pulling a draw out of a hopeless situation is better than stomping the floor with somebody. It's a much better judge of skill with the army you have then direct comparison of unit strength and earning your points back and nonsense like that.

Sorry if that wasn't quite coherent, its late and I hope you know what i'm trying to type.

Don't quite get the guy who thinks it's a bad list . . . all hard units in my opinion, more geared to killing MEQs than the 'more-melta' army template that seems to be popular on this site.

Congrats on the wins, seems like an event full of fun people, slightly skewed by the mission choices.

Also, because I'm a prick:
"He seemed really phased by the fact that he didn't know I could do that" - he was probably fazed by the fact, I don't see how it could have phased him.

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:Yeah, ignore him.

Anyway, I enjoy your brief description of the 2nd game. To me, pulling a draw out of a hopeless situation is better than stomping the floor with somebody. It's a much better judge of skill with the army you have then direct comparison of unit strength and earning your points back and nonsense like that.

I will post the full batrep tomorrow.

This reminds me; what're your thoughts regarding Banewolves and the heavy flamer/multimelta issue? The way I see it.....

heavy flamer gets you:
12" move and double-template
15 points

multimelta gets you:
versatility
no funky wound allocation shenanigans

In your list, with 3 hydras, 2 melta CCS, 2 manticores and a plethora of misc. S6-7 shooting, I can see why you don't even need the multimeltas. And any loss of AP3 killing brought on by wound allocation stuff is likely mitigated by 18 BS4 rapid fire plasma shots and 8 rerolled cover meltas.

Also, did you find 6 psykers to be enough?

PanamaG wrote:Wow, congrats on placing decently with such a horrid list. No offense but where are your vet heavy weapons? How do you win any games having to run across the board with your chimeras? Bane wolfs? Really? All that plasma? Good thing you played Nob Bikers or those two units of PBS wouldve been wasted the entire tourney.

Sorry I just dont see a competitive list there....Dakkatactics at their finest I guess hehe.

Could you please post a superior Guard list, that would have been better than Shep's given the missions?

I'm curious to see how awesome yours is.. Right now I'm thinking your post is all talk and no walk.

Shep wrote:

I don't know if this is some kind of joke, or this is a serious post?

Of course it is serious.

Shep wrote:



vet heavy weapons? Do you actually stand still with your chimeras while people auto-hit them in close combat?

Hahaha, they have to get to you first man. Then you roll up and meet them that one turn with the meltas. Come on.

Shep wrote:

Banewolves? Yes, the vehicle that wounds all models on a 2+ and has ap3. Oh and can move 12" and lay out two templates onto infantry units, getting hit on 6s in the following CC.

And can do nothing vs tanks, and is as tough as a wet carboard box.

Shep wrote:


I didn't "have to run across the board" in any game. 3x hydras, 6x multi-lasers, 2x manticores and a soulstorm/weaken resolve

I am sorry, I am just not impressed by this. Nothing personal.

Shep wrote:

And I used my MOBILE chimeras to not get punked out in CC.

Lol as in running across the board doing nothing but firing the multilaser and closing the gap thus handing yourself to your opponent. Id rather sit still popping his transports and then what unit or two does get to me, I meet him with all the meltaguns. Why would I ever just sit there if I saw myself getting assaulted the next round???

Shep wrote:


'Dakkatactics'? I'll just check out your "tech" next tourney I guess.

I dont go to 5 man rtts sorry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manimal wrote:

You really think 3 heavy weapons on troops that are likely to want to move for at least 1/3 of game turns are going to make or break a list?

Well an effective list would have more troops and the CCS would have heavies too.

And that is what the Vets do? Just sit there? Yeah thats effecient...

PanamaG has started a total of thirteen threads--three of which were locked for being trolls. About half are in the OT forum. The other half contain subject titles such as "IG are bunk." I'd recommend the ignore option.

Melta Myth! I agree. I pop AV13-14 with plasma all the time!

Olympia - sorry if I come across as trolling I just believe in tough love. I don't sugarcoat it.

Panama, Since you are so informed on Imperial Guard.. Show us a efficient list in your not so humble opinion.

You have no problem spouting off what sucks, but have yet to provide a soild list you have written.

Banewolves not tough? Theyre the same AV as your Eldar tanks, 12/12/10. They don't need to be able to bust tanks, thats what the multiple hydra's, meltas, and s10 pie plates are for. They're for flushing power armor out of cover. You don't know much about combined arms I'm guessing?

12 twin linked Auto-cannons with a 72" range, with another 9 Heavy bolter shots, combined with 18 s6 shots and 2d3 S10 pie plates at long range with a guarenteed auto-break isn't impressive for a 1750 long range shooting phase? Tell me what is. This isn't mentioning the 18 plasma, 8 melta and 12 heavy flamer templates at short range. Again, you've yet to provide examples of how it could be better...

CCS is best with special weapons to better use orders and filling the gaps where needed in order to support the mobile infantry. It keeps them moving and not chained to a over-priced heavy weapon that reduces your unit to 4 models... You know mobility? The thing that wins games?

So again, show me your suggestions for a Imperial Guard list. All I see is critique with nothing to back it up.

Wow there are some great bat-reps coming from this tourny. You all must have a great gaming community in that area.

That's a scary list Shep, it would wipe me off the table for sure.

Thanks for the report!

Yea it is scary.
It's one of those: grind through and hope for the best sort of lists.

PanamaG wrote: Well an effective list would have more troops and the CCS would have heavies too.

Now I suspect that you are not very good at list design.

Heavy weapons on the CCS? Nothing like giving up two special weapons for a single heavy weapon.

More Troops!?!?!? The best units in terms of killing power, which is what you seemed to be implying that Shep's list is missing, are rarely found in the troops section. This is certainly the case for IG.

5 man RTT? You mean the 60 man tournament that was sponsored by battlefoam?

PanamaG is a smalltime troll who hasn't backed up anything he's said, feel free to ignore him.

Nice battle reports, though I am in agreement with Fetterkey that the scenarios were overly silly.

Great Bat-Reps Shep. Fun reads and a nasty combined-arms guard list. I was really worried/hoping that I'd meet you for the last game (though it would have been fun, I have a feeling I would have been sloggin' across the board on the start of turn two with a phalanx of knocked-out vehicles behind me).

Cheers!

Thanks for writing up the report Shep. Great job and congrats on your finish. Pity about the weird missions.

You thought of putting in a daemon hunter inquisitor with mystics and emperor's tarot in your list? Would have helped against the pod list and +1 to go first is good.

Thanks for the info. I been trying to finalize my 1750 guard list. I am reasonably happy with my 1850 after recent changes but have to make some critical cuts to get to 1750 that I'm not all that comfortable making.

PanamaG wrote:Melta Myth! I agree. I pop AV13-14 with plasma all the time!

Olympia - sorry if I come across as trolling I just believe in tough love. I don't sugarcoat it.

And I believe that you have no real clue what you're talking about


Anyway, congrats Shep! Nice showing with the guard, and very solid list. What do you think you could have done differently to help out with game 4? And yes, the scenaio seems like it was absolutely slowed. Do you think that something like that army brings merit to biting the 32pt bullet that is Inquisimystics? Or perhaps the inclusion of an OotF? Either one wouldn't have done much of anything at all for the first 3 games, but it seems like it would have been hotsauce for games 4-5. At 30-32 points it isn't a terribly expensive investment to find useless a lot of the time, especially if it helps matchups that would otherwise be extremely difficult (I'm still playing Inquisimystics for the sole reason that when a possing army/certain Daemons builds show up, I don't really have much of a chance without them). Your list does seem ultra tight though, I wouldn't know where to begin to find the points for them, if its even really necessary for you at all. I'm only mentioning this becuse your list seems really solid against almost everything, but deepstrikers seem to be a threat (classic for mech IG lol).

I thought his army was very good, and it was just about the only one I was afraid of playing.