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This is the first tournament I've gone into with my Space Marines force, whom I've dubbed the "Colts of Ultramar". It was run by Adeptus Windy City (folks who run Adepticon) and I had a very fun time...I'll definitely be going to the next tournament they run. This is the report of the first round's action

-HQ-
Librarian [Manning Peyton]- Epistolary upgrade (Avenger & Null Zone)

-Troops-
10 man tac squad - Melta-gun, missile launcher, sarge with combi-melta/power fist in naked rhino

10 man tac squad - Melta-gun, plasma cannon, sarge with combi-melta/power fist in naked rhino

5 man scout squad - camo cloaks, 4x snipers, 1x missile launcher, sarge with melta bombs

-Elite-
Dreadnaught [Mathis] - multi-melta, heavy flamer, dread ccw, extra armor

Dreadnaught [Freeney] - multi-melta, heavy flamer, dread ccw, extra armor

-Fast Attack-
Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer

Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer

Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer

-Heavy Support-
Vindicator

Vindicator

8 man Devastator Squad - 4x missile launchers

Total Cost - 1648



I painted this force up from nothing over the course of 2 1/2 weeks, so there's still work to be done on these models.

Mission

In this tournament, each mission had a Primary, Seconday, and Tertiary objectives

Deployment - Modified Dawn of War (The deployment zones were from your own long table edge, up to 18" from the edge. Had to stay more than 6" from the center line)

Objectives -

Primary - Annihilation (Exactly from the 5th ed rulebook)

Secondary - Player must score at least 500 more victory points than their opponent

Tertiary - Have more units in your opponent's deployment zone than they have in yours

Tactical Points (1 point for each for these, made to help with tiebreakers and such)
-If your most expensive HQ is not fleeing or dead at the end of the game

-If your most expensive unit is not fleeting or dead at the end of the game.

-If you have more scoring units left at the end of the game than your opponent

*Opponent* (Redbeard) He fielded a gorgeous Chaos Daemons Army (Won Best Painted at this tournament.)



His List
Herald of Khorne on chariot

Herald of Tzeentch

Herald of Tzeentch

5x Pink Horrors /w 1x bolt of tzeentch

5x Pink Horrors /w 1x bolt of tzeentch

5x Pink Horrors /w 1x bolt of tzeentch

5x Pink Horrors /w 1x bolt of tzeentch & changeling

6x Bloodcrushers of khorne - chaos icon, 1 of them with rending attacks (I don't know what item it was)

6x Fiends of Slaanesh

2x Soul Grinders

1x Daemon Prince of Nurgle

Total Cost - 1650

Deployment I won the roll and forced him to go first. He chose the herald of khorne, bloodcrushers, both soulgrinders, fiends of slaanesh, and daemonprince to come on his first wave. I deployed nothing on the board and elected to bring my full force on turn 1.

Top Turn 1
He rolls well for the half that he wants, and they drop in, a single blood crusher ended up on difficult terrain, but passed the dangerous terrain check. With no targets on the board, he landed somewhat spread out to cover the board and used his shooting phase to run his units, moving them closer to my board edge and spreading them out.



Bottom Turn 1
I bring my army onto the board. I decide to bring the bulk of my army, including the dreadnaughts to take the bloodcrushers head on. Not shown in the pic for this turn is my other combat squad mounted in rhino moving on the right side of the building in the bottom right. I tried to move the devastators into the building to the right, but they didn't do well in the difficult terrain, same story with the scouts. I bring a combat squad with the vindicators but keep them back due to fear of the blood crushers. My shooting kills 2 of the blood crushers and puts a wound on the one carrying the icon. Vindicator shots scattered off. Dreadnaughts are just out of assault range of the blood crushers (due to the closest two being killed off). I have little choice but to brace for the inevitable charge.



Top Turn 2
He rolls his reserves, all 4 horror squads and 1 of the tzeentch heralds comes in. The Horrors either land safely with little scatter or most of them were dropped close enough to the bloodcrushers to benefit from the icon. He moves his khorne herald, daemon prince, blood crushers forwards. The soul grinders move up to fire their battlecannon shots. Shooting from the horrors stuns both of my speeders on my left flank (one on the extreme left also suffers weapon destroyed (heavy flamer) and shakes the one on the right of the blood crushers. 1 battlecannon shot scatters off harmlessly whilst the other manages to shake a vindicator. He runs the herald of khorne and runs the fiends (poor roll). The bloodcrushers assault my dreadnaught and the daemonprince assaults the land speeder on the left. Fiends declare an assault but are about 2" short of the land speeder. The daemonprince fails to hit the speeder. Bloodcrushers assault Mathis (dreadnaught), rending attack results in weapon destroyed (CCW), dreadnaught misses his attack back.



Bottom Turn 2
My speeder that was shaken on my right side, moves flat out away to protect itself. My combat squad inside of my rhino to the right moves up 12" (pops smoke) and they disembark to take a shot at the soul grinder to the right. Realizing that I moved my Devs in a poor spot (no LOS), I move them out, but they're not goin very fast. Moved the combat squad by the blood crushers into the building and up a level to distance themselves from assaulters. Freeney moves forwards to kill some horrors, the rhino with librarian moves up behind it. My left Vindicator pops smoke. Shooting starts off with Null Zone being cast, but rolling double 1's, so my Lib takes a wound. My tac squad in the rhino with the Lib shoots out of the rhino with a meltagun & combi-melta at the daemon prince (Passed the leadership test forced by the changling), scores a wound on the prince. Freeney uses his heavy flamer + multimelta and wipes out the horror unit that had the changling. The combat squad on my right shoots with the melta+combi-melta 6" from the soul grinder, resulting in a spectacular explosion, going out 6". One of the horror squads is wiped out by the explosion and the other one loses 3 of the 5. (Null Zone was just brutal.) Walking combat squad in my lower right corner fires a plasma cannon at the 2 man horror unit, but it scatters off. In assault phase, the daemon prince that was next to my speeder blows it up. Mathis and Bloodcrushers continue to slap at each other failing to get any wounds or damage results.



Top Turn 3
The 2nd herald of tzeentch comes in, drops in right behind my rhino (uses the icon from the bloodcrusher). The daemon prince moves to assault freeney, as does the herald moves up to assault the speeder on my left flank. Other Herald of Tzeentch moves to roughly where the blood crushers dropped. Fiends of slaanesh move to assault the squad and rhino that exploded the soul grinder. He moves the 2 man pink horror squad to black building next to the right on my right, to get a bolt shot on the rear armor. Shooting goes very poorly for the daemons. Only result is a shaken rhino. Either he rolled misses, failed to penetrate, or when he did get penetrating hits, I made the save with smoke launchers. The only bright spot for him is that my speeder on my left is exploded by pink horrors. Assault goes better for him as Freeney is exploded by the Khorne Herald and daemon prince assaulting. The fiends charge my combat squad and rhino on right. 3 fiends attack the squad and 3 attack the rhino...failed to hit the rhino at all and killed 2 marines. Marines do a wound to the fiends, use combat tactics to run. They actually escape from combat, running a short distance away. The fiends consolidate to get cover behind the black building and to spread out from the vindicator shots. Mathis and the bloodcrushers continue to slap-fight each other, getting a crew shaken on the dreadnaught.





Bottom Turn 3
Combat Squad is still running away, but only ran 3". My scouts move to the edge of the large grey building to set up some shots. My Devs and combat squads stay put. The rhino with the Lib tank shocks past the daemon prince, it doesn't attempt death or glory, rhino pops smoke. My remaining speeder moves up close to the fiends to flamer them, the rhino on my right moves 6" back to shoot the fiends with the storm bolter. The vindicators both move just slightly to make it more difficult to hit in an assault. The scouts fire their bolt pistols at the tzeentch herald, putting a couple of wounds on it. The shooting from my forces puts 6 wounds on the fiends, resulting in 3 being killed and 1 of the 3 with 1 wound. the tac squad that fled the fiends rapid fire the horrors that shot my rhino, killing 1 of them. My Vindicator on the left fires at the daemon prince, scatters slightly, putting a wound on the daemon prince (2 wounds remaining) and a wound on the blood crushers. My scouts, seeing an oppurtunity to kill a herald of tzeentch in assault (low WS, 4+ save, only CCW attacks back), assault (getting the 6" to get to him out of the building), managed to kill it with just scout close combat attacks, no wounds suffered in return. Mathis and the blood crushers continue to slap fight.



Top Turn 4
He moves his tzeentch herald to shoot at my Lib Rhino's rear armor, lone horror with bolt of tzeentch moves to get LOS to speeder. The soul grinder moves closer to the rhino. Daemon Prince moves to assault my gold vindicator on the left. The remaining fiends move towards my devestators. Shooting from his lone horror misses my speeder, shooting from the tzeentch herald results in a weapon destroyed result for the rhino with the Librarian. Sould Grinder fleets towards the rhino. Soul Grinder assaults the rhino, failing to hit. Khorne herald charges the scouts, killing 2, and taking a wound in return. Scouts pass leadership. Daemon Prince assaults the gold vindicator, hits 3 times, fails to get any damage results. Bloodcrushers finally explode the dreadnaught with a rending hit. and consolidate. to spread out. Fiends assault the devs, killing 1 guy, no wounds in return.



Bottom Turn 4
Combat squad on my right continued running into the grey building. I moved my vindicators backwards and to the side to reduce the chances of a shot scattering onto themselves and to avoid enemy assaults. The Lib's rhino moved 6" and pivoted to point the front armor at the herald of tzeentch. The combat squad inside of the grey building moved upwards to the 3rd level to get away from a potential assault from blood crushers. I moved my plasma cannon combat squad to help out the devs in close combat. Shooting consists of me casting null zone again. The combat squad inside the rhino fires a meltagun at the soulgrinder, managing to wreck it with a vehicle destroyed result. I use my rhino with storm bolter and land speeder to finish off the lone horror. My shooting from the vindicators and tac squad on the roof kills 2 more blood crushers and puts a wound on the daemon prince. Assault phase consists of the herald of khorne killing 2 more scouts, the lone scout makes his leadership test. My plasma cannon combat squad on the right charges the fiends. Fiends send all their attacks at at the combat squad, killing 1. My marines combine to inflict 3 wounds, which null zone prevents them from being saved. I won combat by 2, he takes additional wounds and is left with a single fiend with 1 wound remaining. He uses Hit & Run to get out of combat. I consolidate my devs to get a LOS on his herald of khorne. Consolidated the combat squad towards the rhino, but its still quite a bit away.



Top Turn 5

Horrors moved forwards slightly, Tzeentch herald moves to shoot at rhino. The daemon prince moves towards my gold vindicator on the left. The blood crushers moved towards the vindicator on my right (got a low difficult terrain roll, so didn't bother going for the troops.) The fiend went towards my speeder. The horrors shot at my combat squad, killing 1. The herald of tzeentch failed to damage the rhino. The fiend assaulted my land speeder, failing to damage it. The daemon prince exploded the vindicator, whilst the blood crushers failed to damage my vindicator on the right. Herald of Khorne kills the final scout and consolidates 2" to get into my deployment zone for that tertiary objective.

*No Pic Here*

Bottom Turn 5
My combat squad that had been fleeing regroups inside the building and moves towards the bloodcrushers to rapid fire them. My speeder moves towards the bloodcrushers to take a potshot at them. remaining vindicator backs up slightly to make it harder to hit in assault. Shooting opens up with librarian using null zone. Combined fire from the vindicator and tac squad on the bottom rapid firing kills the last 2 bloodcrushers. The tac squad on the roof shoots and kills the daemon prince with 2 wounds (1 from krak missile and another from bolters). My rhino on the right and plasma cannon squad combine to finish off the last fiend of slaanesh. My devs fire frag missiles at the horrors but scatter some shots off, only killing 3 of the 5.

We rolled random game length and the game ended. Also time was short so we didn't have enough time to start another turn (they called 15 minutes to the end of the round, which in this tourney, means no game turns are to be started past that.)



Results -

I took the primary & secondary objectives easily. He took the tertiary objective on me. I got 38 points (20 for primary objective, 15 for secondary, and all 3 "tactical bonuses"). He got 10 points for the tertiary objective.

Observations/Lessons Learned
I think the way I came onto the board initially wasn't the best way to approach it. This is mainly due to my lack of experience playing against chaos daemons. I did at least set up the dreadnaughts well to tie up the blood crushers. I think for the first half of the game, I was actually out-played/out-maneuvered, but the die rolls kept my units alive long enough for me to recover and adjust. Overall it was a fun game and I'd definitely play the guy again. Main thing to take away is Null Zone is just devastating to an army that almost completely relies on invulnerable saves. Bloodcrushers are vicious, but can be tied up pretty well with walkers.

*Also sorry about the kinda poor quality on some of the pics, was pressed for time so I quickly snapped the pics*

That one soul grinder blowing up cost him , thats why I don't like soulgrinders.

I think chairging the dred with the chrushers was a mistake on his part as well. all in all good game.

Nice report, I am looking forward to reading the rest. I hope that Redbeard posts his batreps as well.

I hate Null Zone. I hate that GW put in a psychic ability that absolutely devastates an army with no psychic defense.

I hope that Redbeard posts his batreps as well.

He did already

damn it, yeah I just noticed that myself. I didn't look at the date - I just thought it was last weekend. I was hoping for a twofer from Redbeard ;-)

Nullzone makes SM better than greyknights and offing daemons, sad times.

Skrivus wrote:
Observations/Lessons Learned
I think the way I came onto the board initially wasn't the best way to approach it. This is mainly due to my lack of experience playing against chaos daemons. .. I think for the first half of the game, I was actually out-played/out-maneuvered, but the die rolls kept my units alive long enough for me to recover and adjust.

Your initial deployment was not good, but the dice were not helping me exploit it. Par for the course for me though.

This picture here, I think, is most telling:



It's after you've come onto the board, shot your entire army at my bloodcrushers, and I've voluntarily removed the two that would have allowed your dreads to charge me. (I could have spread wounds around and kept them alive, as one of them was the one with the instrument. I actually didn't want them that far forward, but they scattered, and I knew I was within the dread's charge range, so positioned them so that the right casualties could get them back out of that range.)

Anyhow, looking at the picture, and where my stuff is, you're packed into a clump with no where to move. I've got my icon in there, so when my horrors land, they're all in range to shoot speeders. My Prince and Chariot are one or two turns removed from your cluster as well, and the grinders and fiends aren't that much further off.

As it was, even with my hits on your speeders and vindicators doing no lasting damage, your second turn shooting netted three horrors and the bait soulgrinder I left you, and then I'm on you. What went wrong for me was that a daemon prince was unable to score any hits on the vindicator, and the fiends failed to take advantage of the position that you'd left the squad that killed the soulgrinder in. After those failures, you were able to seize the game and I was left scrambling as you'd got yourself repositioned.

It was the fiends that really screwed me. Charging the rhino and the squad, I should have gotten three hits, and at least one glance on the rhino, as well as the hits on the marines. When you opted to run, I figured okay, I'll catch you, and stay tied up, with you taking a couple of saves. Fiends are I5, this shouldn't have been too hard, but I popped a '1' on the sweeping advance, and you got away, so rather than finishing you on your turn, and then moving on to your other exposed troops, I got shot up, leaving too few fiends to be effective in any followup action. From my perspective, that was the point where I no longer had a chance to win the game and was merely trying to survive.

I did at least set up the dreadnaughts well to tie up the blood crushers.

My initial goal for deepstriking was to keep the crushers outside of the 12" initial charge range that your dreads would have. They scattered towards you, but rather than charge, you shot them up, letting me prevent you from charging, which ended up costing you the arm on the dread when I charged you (and my whole squad was able to get glances, instead of just the champ). More importantly, it let me decide where the charge happened, and so that combat took place right in front of your other vindicator, blocking its line of sight.

While the general rule indicates that you want to tie up my crushers with your dread, that's not the case against your army. With those two vindicators and null zone, I'm actually safer with my crushers fighting against a dread, who is, at most, going to kill one a turn, than I am facing the vindicators with my giant-footprint unit. I've got three different units (prince, chariot, fiends) all close enough to throw into your dread when I want my crushers free. I was more than happy to let the crushers sit in the fight with the armless dread until the vindicators were no longer a threat. Unfortunately, they had other plans and killed him too quickly, giving you another turn shooting them before I got to them (and even then, I bounced off them with both the crushers and the prince, giving them yet another turn shooting).

Main thing to take away is Null Zone is just devastating to an army that almost completely relies on invulnerable saves.

Null Zone is painful, but it was just icing on the cake. If I'd been able to actually score meaningful hits on your vehicles, I wouldn't have had to roll the saves in the first place. Another example of this, the one turn that my soul grinder attacked your librarian's rhino, and scores a penetrating hit, and I get the one result that doesn't matter at all - I kill the storm bolter. If you're shaken/stunned, you can't shoot (or cast null zone) without getting out of the tank, which is two easy KP for my assault guys (libby and his unit). If you're killed, the guys fall out anyway. If you're immobilized, my hits the next turn are automatic. The storm bolter, though, is irrelevant, so that's what my pen. got me.

It's always interesting to read the game from the other perspective, and you added the pics too. I'd say I'll get you next time, but I doubt my dice will ever improve

Yeah those are some very good points. My inexperience against Daemons did hurt me quite a bit, but as you said, the fickle die rolls allowed me to recover out of my stumbling start.

I'm sure my luck with the die rolls will eventually run out and that will be interesting to see, but hope to see you at the next tournament in a week and a half.

Round 2 -

Deployment - Pitched Battle

Primary Objective was rather odd...There were Six objective markers that were set up similar to "seize ground". Players took turns alternating placing these down before deployment (can't be within 12" of a board edge or another objective). The difference was that after every full game turn, there would be a die roll for each objective marker. If a '6' was rolled, the objective disappears. If the objective is "controlled" by a scoring unit when it disappears, the unit also disappears. That unit is placed into reserves to return into play via deep strike. The objective taken counts for the total score of the player that controlled it. If it is contested, the objective disappears and nobody gets the point.

Secondary - Score at least 750 more victory points than your opponent.

Tertiary - Eliminate all of the opponent's troop choices, including any dedicated transports taken as part of a troops selection.

Tactical Bonuses

- If your opponent has no surviving Fast Attack

-If your opponent has no surviving Heavy Support

-If your opponent has no surviving Elite Choices

Opponent's Eldar list -

Eldrad

10 man Warlock Unit (which he asserted was a retinue for eldrad, and argued successfully to a judge that this was the case)- 1 with enhance, 1 with embolden, 1 with conceal, 3x shining spears, 7x destructors

Farseer - singing spear, doom, fortune, eldritch storm

10 man dire avenger squad

10 man dire avenger squad

10 man wraithguard squad, 1x warlock, 1x spirit seer

Wave Serpent

*Sorry, I lost the pics for the deployment and the First turn.

We deployed the 6 markers just outside of the 12" from each long board edge, so there was 3 per side. He won the roll to go first and elected to do so. He deployed his guys in a nice line (pretty much with a troops choice next to each objective), the wave serpent was deployed on my right side with eldrad and his "retinue" was deployed behind it, ready to hop in.

I deployed with my tac squads split into combat squads like my first game. I had one rhino in the middle to take the objective on my side and a footslogging combat squad (with a missile launcher also covering it), I deployed a combat squad on my right side at the base of a building ready to take the objective on my right side. I infiltrated a scout squad on my left behind some cover to cover the third objective on my side. I put one vindicator on my left, with Freeney to cover this flank. I put another vindicator and Mathis on my right center to cover those 2 objectives. I placed the Devs at the top of a building on my right, with sight over nearly the whole field and out of range of most of his stuff, they'd be safe to rain missile shots down the whole game. I put my speeders in reserve because I wanted to have them to counter the wave serpent and "retinue".

Seeing his list being rather short ranged and limited, I would have a field day with my firepower...the only X Factor was the objective.

He used Eldrad's ability to redeploy some of his units, he moved his wave serpent and his "Retinue" with eldrad over on the other side, so to my left. I rolled to seize the initiative and got it.

Top Turn 1
I moved my rhino with Lib on the right side and Mathis to try and grab his objective inside of a building. I moved my rhino on the left slightly to cover the left objective. The foot slogging combat squads each grabbed the center objective and right objective respectively. Freeney moves forward. My shooting consists of a vindicator shot on the left at a wraithguard unit, killing 1 guy, though my devs shot with frag missiles at a dire avenger squad in the building, killed everyone but the exarch (he made his save). His guys were kinda packed in the cover, so I got a ton of hits with 4 frag rounds all hitting. The exarch fails leadership and run off of the objective, almost running off the board.

Bottom Turn 1
Exarch runs off the board. Eldrad Casts fortune on the "retinue". Other dire avengers stay put, as well as the wraithguard. The "Retinue" gets in the Wave Serpent and the serpent jumps 24" to just outside my objective on my left. Uses star engines in the shooting phase to hop over my vehicles to contest my objective on the left and turned so the rear armor was facing my board edge.

We roll for disappearing objectives, one of the three on my side go, but the two that he controlled both disappear for him, so I'm down 2-0 after the first turn.

Top Turn 2
None of my land speeders come in this turn. I move my rhino on the right full distance, disembark with the lib and combat squad (attempting to run and control that objective before it disappears on me). Mathis moves with the rhino to help secure the objective. My vindicator on the right moves up to get a shot on the unit to the right. I move my vindicator on the left back and turned it so it was blocking most of the rear disembarkation area (moved it so it would be able to fire this turn, but felt it better to block the exit). My combat squad which hopped out of the their rhino also moved up to meltagun the rear armor and block the exit. I moved freeney to fire at the wave serpent and if that failed, be in position to assault it. The Rhino moves to my middle objective and the combat squad holding that hops inside for protection. My run attempt fails miserably with the Lib, only going 1" with that combat squad, so can't get that objective this turn. My shooting consisted of the tac squad, sniper scouts and freeney all failing to immobilize or wreck the wave serpent. I had save the devs (if something else killed the wave serpent, they could have followed up on the passengers.) The Devs manage to get a penetrating hit and exploded the vehicle (poor result for me) as his models hop out in the area where the vehicle was. He lost 2 warlocks and passed the pinning test. Out of fear of his "retinue" running loose around my army, I assaulted them with the dread and my tac squad. This is when the argument about them being a "retinue" took place, because I thought I could single out eldrad with a powerfist. Well I lost the combat, the dread was just shaken, but I lost 4 marines, the last one failed leadership, but stayed around, surviving his "no retreat" wounds.



Bottom Turn 2
He rolls his reserves (the 2 squads that disappeared with objectives) and they both come in. The wraith guard aim to drop in between my middle rhino and the scouts, but he scatters towards the rhino, just far enough away that he's able to avoid a mishap (barely got his last guys more than 1" away from the rhino) and he drops the dire avengers near the building where his last objective is. The Avengers bladestorm my tac squad with the librarian, killing all but 1 bolter guy. The wraithguard fire at my rhino, just managing to stun and shake the vehicle multiple times. My Lib & Tac squad passed leadership check. Assault results in my dreadnaught being shaken/stunned. Freeney fails to kill any in return.

None of the objectives disappear.



Top Turn 3
I roll my speeders in for reserves and 2 come in. Seeing that the warlocks are still tied up in close combat, I boost the speeders flat out to go after the dire avengers. I detach the Librarian and move him with Mathis to pursue the dire avengers. I put the last guy from the combat squad back in the rhino and drove it right into the building to sit on the objective. I move my vindicators to shoot at the wraithguard. I moved the one on the right backwards in an attempt to get away from any reprisal shots from surviving wraithguard and he immobilizes itself on the difficult terrain. My Vindicators tear into the wraithguard, killing all of them and the wraithguard, the only one left standing is the farseer, who took a wound from the combat squad in the rhino. Mathis fires his flamer at the dire avengers (I eyeballed the distance at about 8", so he would've have been able to assault if he didn't fire, and the flame template barely touched two of the dire avengers.) and the melta together kills 3. This forces a leadership test and the avengers fail. The farseer passes his leadership test. In combat, the Warlocks wreck the dreadnaught.



Bottom Turn 3
Dire Avengers regroup, lone farseer moves towards my land speeder, and the warlock unit moves to my scouts. My Librarian's psychic hood shut down most of his psychic powers, though he managed to get fortune on his warlocks. Avengers run away from my dreadnaught, the farseer assaults my speeder, managing to stun the vehicle. The warlocks assault my scouts and wipe them out.

The objective on his side in the grey building that my squad in the rhino controlled disappeared, so I got myself a point back.



Top Turn 4
The squad that disappeared with the objective comes back in, and deepstrikes (Yes, deepstruck the rhino!). I aimed it right by the warlock unit to try and contest that object, but it scattered 12" straight towards his edge. My 3rd speeder comes in and moves up 12" to get a flamer shot on the warlock group. My librarian moves towards his lone farseer, while the dread moves towards the dire avengers. My rhino on the middle objective moved slightly to open up LOS for my vindicator and combat squad with plasma cannon to fire at the warlock group. My unstunned land speeder that was on the middle right of the board, moves 12" to set up a multimelta shot on the farseer. My shooting starts with my librarian successfully casting Nullzone, despite the runes of warding. This undid that warlock unit, as their
"fortune" was negated. My 2 Vindicators, plasma cannon, squad in rhino...after all that, the warlock unit was gone and Eldrad was left with 2 wounds remaining. A multi-melta shot from my land speeder killed the other farseer. My Devs try to finish Eldrad off with krak missiles, but fail massive, not even scoring a wound. Eldrad makes his leadership test.

*No pic of this turn, sorry*

Bottom Turn 4
He moves eldrad towards my rhino on my middle objective and moves the dire avengers away from Mathis. Eldrad fails to damage the rhino, but in his assault, manages to get close enough to contest the objective. The Dire Avengers shoot at my speeder, immobilizing and destroying the weapon.

Rolled for Objectives, none disappeared. Game Ended because time ran short. I controlled an objective on the bottom right, which I also got a point for, so it was 2-2.



*Note*; This was a very frustrating game to play, not because of the actual game or mission, but due to the opponent. He was "That Guy." He asserted that the warlocks with eldrad were his retinue, and managed to get the judges to decide this in his favor earlier in the tournament, so they stuck with it for consistency. He didn't define the council very well, so the warlocks with the good upgrades conveniently always were the last ones to be removed. I had to correct several rules mistakes on his part and couldn't trust anything he did. Also in the 4th turn especially, he played very slowly (despite only having a few units left). Despite the judges of the tournament stating the rule that no game turns be started after they call "15 minutes left in the round", he 'slow played' the bottom of the 4th turn (took more than 15 minutes to do a turn with just 2 units left), just so we'd get close enough to the 15 minute cut-off that we couldn't start another turn. Typically I don't like to complain about my opponents, but this guy was just bad to play and I'll never voluntarily play him again.

Primary Objective - Draw as we both ended up with 2.

Secondary Objectives - Draw (As the judges decided about his "retinue" and considered Eldrad to count as part of the retinue...I got half points for the warlock unit (even though I killed all of them) and then half points for eldrad (wounded him once)...I had about 690 more victory points than him, so I didn't win this.

Tertiary - Neither one of us got this one, so no points

I got all three tactical objectives.

I got a total of 20 out of a possible 48 points.

After two rounds, my battle point total was 58 points out of a possible 96.

Observations - The mission itself was very random and him getting 2 objectives first turn really hurt me. I think the main mistake I made was putting my speeders in reserve. He had no long range firepower and I could have had them out to wipe out those dire avenger squads in turn 2 & 3. I tried to have them play for turns 4-6, but I didn't take into account the possibility of objectives going away first turn and the game only getting 4 turns in. I also messed up by moving my vindicator into the difficult terrain, immobolizing, and giving him enough victory points that kept me from winning that secondary objective. Other than that, if we could have gotten in a 5th turn, I would have most likely tabled him or at least cleared eldrad out so I'd win on primary objectives. I think he sensed that and played slow his 4th turn to avoid this. I hate going on about it, but it shouldn't take 15 minutes to move, shoot, and assault 2 small units (1 of which only has 1 guy).

*I'll post the third round tomorrow*

FYI: you say that on one turn his warlocks board a wave serpent, and then it uses Star Engines. That's illegal, Star Engines may not be used on a turn where models embarked or disembarked. Just so that doesn't happen to you again.

Ah, well thank you for letting me know of that, because knowing...is half the battle...

I can just imagine Tricky Dick's take on this TFG on the upcoming podcast. Assuming you discuss the tournament on the podcast that is (thought that was the plan).

Look forward to the third batrep, these have been good reads.

As Redbeard said..
Neither may you move flat out the turn a unit embarks or disembarks from a vehicle.

Otherwise it seemed like a fun tournament! Nice with some pics

Maybe hindsight is 20-20, but is there a reason you didn't fire the Devestator's missiles at the council or the single wave serpent on turn one? I admit, it would have been ugly if a third objective had disappeared for him but the unfortuned council would have been pretty vulnerable to mass frag. Although if he really was that guy then wrecking his council on turn one would have resulted in, at best, a three turn game. I'm really grateful one of our stores instituted a "if you don't make it through 5 turns, the game is automatically a draw" rule. While its not perfect and open to abuse, it has had the generally desired effect of making people play at a decent pace---especially because the owner caveated his rule with "unless I think you're deliberately slow-playing, in which case you lose."

@Winterman - Yeah we'll have to see what Tricky Dick feels going off on a tangent with this week, but yeah I'm planning to talk about the tournament. I still have to post the third round, which I should have done by late tonight.

I didn't shoot the devastator's missiles at the wave serpent or council because they were out of range, being at nearly opposite corners. Sorry, I realize that the pics left the devs out, they were in a building in my lower right corner on the 3rd floor.

He had deployed them across from there, which is where I put the devs, but he used Eldrad's redeploy ability to move the across to the other side.

Gotcha. That makes alot more sense now.

good report - one other thing on the star engines, I am not sure that they can rotate - I thought it was just straight line movement (I could be wrong on this)

can't wait for game 3!

Somnicide wrote:good report - one other thing on the star engines, I am not sure that they can rotate - I thought it was just straight line movement (I could be wrong on this)

can't wait for game 3!

Totally right. You can move the tank its normal move (up to 24"), pivot to face, and then star engine in a straight line on the new facing. You cannot, however, pivot at the end of your star engine move. But it sounds like this opponent had several creative interpretations going anyway.

Yeah, this is kind of why I need to get a hold of all of the codicies (not just the ones I play) so I can read through and know what items can/can't do...

winterman wrote:I can just imagine Tricky Dick's take on this TFG on the upcoming podcast. Assuming you discuss the tournament on the podcast that is (thought that was the plan).

Which podcast is this?

Somnicide wrote:
good report - one other thing on the star engines, I am not sure that they can rotate - I thought it was just straight line movement (I could be wrong on this)

That was the old codex. The new codex has no such restriction. The new codex's FAQ makes it clear that it's a normal, up-to move.

Sorry you had to play TFG. I knew who it was as soon as I saw the little tupperware containers. I had a miserable game vs. him in a previous tournament where he pulled all manner of shenanigans.

- Blackbone

@Redbeard - The podcast is Dice Like Thunder, they play at the bunker, kind of more of a casual group. I've kinda joined in with them on their podcasts.

@Blackbone - That sucks. Despite the bad game against TFG, I still had a very good time at the turney. The fun I had with the first and third round opponents more than made up for the bad time I had with the 2nd round. I'll be going to their next tournament, hopefully I won't have to play TFG again.

Maybe tell the organizers that he is your regular opponent and you would really appreciate the chance to play against other players if at all possible ;-)

Maybe tell the organizers that he is your regular opponent and you would really appreciate the chance to play against other players if at all possible ;-)

Now that is pure genius!

No turn should take 15 minutes with 2 units. Call a judge and claim stalling as soon as you think it's happening. TFG must be met with force. If he thinks he will get away with it, he'll try it. Call him on it early in the round, bring a judge. If you make life uncomfortable for this player he will either change or he won't come to play anymore.

Round 3

Mission Overview - Spearhead Deployment, Night Fight on Turn 1

Primary Objective - Capture & Control

Secondary - Score at least 1000 more victory points than your opponent.

Tertiary - Control the Table. To get this, need to have at least one unit in each table quarter, doesn't have to be a scoring unit. Both players can complete this objective.

Tactical Bonuses

-Opponent's most expensive unit is dead or fleeing at the end of the game

-Opponent's most expensive HQ is dead or fleeing at the end of the game

-Opponent has fewer than 4 units left at the end of the game.

My Opponent's army (*Can't locate the printed list the guy gave me at the time, so I'm going off of memory)

Chaos HQ Named Character (Can't remember which because it had little effect in the game.)

Greater Daemon

6 man Plague Marine squad, 2x meltas, Champion with powerfist, in a rhino

6 man Plague Marine squad, 2x plasmaguns, champion with powerfist, in a rhino

6 man Plague Marine squad, 2x plasmaguns, champion with powerfist, in a rhino

8 man lesser daemon squad

2 man oblit squad

2 man oblit squad

8 man Havoc squad with 4x plasma guns, in a rhino

Deployment

I won the roll for first turn and made him go first (I felt with the night fight I would have difficulty doing anything meaningful in the first turn). He placed his objective in some ruins in the middle of his quarter, and I placed mine in the back end of a small building in my quarter. He deployed his 4 rhinos to the right side of a large building that dominated the center, ready to adapt to what I did. Seeing the limited terrain and being overconfident in my firepower's ability to crack a few rhinos, I mass my infantry on the objective, with the Devs set up with a good field of fire regardless if he goes towards my left or right. The combat squad with the plasma cannon is set next to them to hopefully fry some guys as soon as I crack their transports. The other combat squad with the missile is set up just to cover my objective and with my missile launcher set at a window in the corner to cover my right side. I place my vindicators in the open near my long board edge, covering my 2 rhinos and a land speeder. Freeney & Mathis are set up to cover my left flank and to move through the buildings. I have two land speeders set up on the left to cover these as well. Also not covered in the pic is me infiltrating my scout squad behind some ruins in his quarter. I figured that if I can force one of his squads to come back to deal with them, it'd be easier to deal with the rest...otherwise I'd just walk to grab a free objective.



Top Turn 1
He moves his two Plague Marine rhinos on the top forwards, keeping to the north of the large red building. The Havoc Rhino follows. The other plague marine rhino moves back to my scouts, disembarks the plague marines. The two Plague Rhinos coming towards my force use smoke launchers. He fires the plague marines at my scouts, killing 2, they break and run.

*Sorry, no pic for this*

Bottom Turn 1
Scouts regroup and move away, hiding from the plague marines. I move Freeney & Mathis right towards the two rhinos. My vindicators move to the left to get shots on any possible survivors. One of my speeders moves up behind Mathis & Freeney, other speeder moves flat out to the right. Both of my rhinos move 12" towards his objective. Shooting starts with my dreadnaughts firing one shot at each of the front two rhinos, they don't do any damage (both saved by smoke cover saves), but the searchlights illuminate them. Shooting from my Devs eventually explode one rhino. I manage to shaken the other. I attempt follow up shots with the vindicators on the exposed marines, but both shots scatter off with no effect. Plasma Cannon gets hot, but the guy makes his armor save. My land speeders both miss.



Top Turn 2
One of his Oblit squads and his lesser daemons comes in. The lesser daemons drop near the plague marines in the open (uses their icon), and set up to charge my land speeder in the upper left. His plague marines on my far right move to chase the scouts. Their Rhino moves to keep close to that. Oblits drop down on the corner of the building (pass their difficult terrain check). The shaken rhino moves through the building, dumping off the melta-gun plague marines right next to my dreadnaughts. The havoc rhino moves into the building. His shooting opens up, The two plague marines squads and oblits fired at Freeney, Mathis, and my land speeder next to them, resulting in an exploded land speeder (that kills 1 Dev marine), Freeney Explodes, and Mathis is shaken. The plague marines near my scouts rapid fire them, reducing them down to 1 guy left, who makes leadership. Lesser Daemons assault my land speeder, managing to stun it.



Bottom 2
I move my rhino with the Lib to help against his offensive push. I keep the tac squad inside of the rhino, but disembark the Lib. (I was worried about vindicator shots scattering and killing the troops squad, and I was reluctant to use my melta guns on the rhino because I didn't want to wreck the rhino, preventing the vindicators from shooting and killing the plague marines behind it. I took the Lib so I could use Avenger against the plague marines. I bring my other land speeder back to help out as well. I sent my combat squad in the other rhino continuing to move forwards to contest his objective. I moved my lone scout around a corner and out of LOS, so his Plague marines will have to take more time to chase him around. Mathis moves towards the Oblits, aiming to assault. Shooting has me successfully cast null zone, and then used avenger, killed 1 plague marine. First vindicator shot, targeting the far end of the rhino in front of it, to cover the plague marines...scatters right onto the Librarian (not just touching him a little bit, the center hole was right on top of him) and kills him :cry:. 2nd vindicator shot lands on, killing 2 plague marines and immobilizing the rhino. Rest of my shooting results in 2 more plague marines in the same squad being killed, plasma cannon scatters off. Mathis attempts to assault the oblits, rolls his difficult terrain check (about 1.5 inches away) and rolls snake eyes. (Before the game, we had discussed the terrain and mutually agreed that the full rectangular base of the terrain pieces constituted area terrain.) His Lesser Daemons continue to hit my speeder, getting more crew shaken and stunned results.



Top Turn 3
He rolls his reserves, the 2nd oblit squad comes in. He drops it right in front of the building holding my objective. The other oblits move closer to Mathis to make him pay for the failed assault. The depleted plague marine squad hops back into their immobilized rhino to chill. The squad chasing my scouts moves back to get into their rhino and moves a little bit, not sure where my scout will go. The only plague marine squad without a transport moves to the building to try and gain cover. He moves the havoc rhino 6" to my rhino racing for his objective. He moves his lesser daemons around my land speeder towards my force, but still staying close to assault the land speeder. His shooting starts with the havocs in the rhino firing 2 plasma guns into my rhino, manages to stun the vehicle with a glancing hit. The oblits that landed in front of my Devs hit them with twin-linker flamers and kill 3, unfortunately 2 of those were missile launchers). The other oblits shoot Mathis with twin-linked meltas, managing to destroy the close combat arm and stun it. Devs fail leadership and run 2". Oblits assault the dread, failing to damage, the dread does nothing with his 1 attack. The lesser daemons immobilize and destroy the multi-melta of the land speeder.

*Pic was taken before I moved the devs after the failed leadership.


Bottom Turn 3
It's not looking good right now. Devs keep running. I disembark my combat squad from the rhino that the Lib had stepped out of earlier and move them towards the oblits that flamered my devs. my stunned rhino uses smoke launchers. My remaining intact speeder, moves towards my vindicators to get a melta shot on the immobilized rhino. My other empty rhino moves backwards behind my land speeder. My shooting opens up with my combat squad firing their melta and combi-melta at the oblits, killing 1. Land speeder misses its melta shot on the rhino. vindicators fire one shot at the plague marines behind the rhino, near the building in the upper left, killing 2. Other shot lands on the rhino directly in front, destroying the bolter on the rhino. plasma cannon shot at the plague marine squad, scattering off. I assault the one oblit with my combat squad, expecting to win, due to a power fist sargeant and 5 models against his 1 model with 2 attack. My power fist misses all three attacks, I lose one guy to the oblit, the squad fails leadership and runs away 10" and lone oblit consolidates 1". Other Oblits continue to slapfight with the dread.



Top Turn 4
Greater Daemon comes in. The champion of the plague marine squad in the immobilized rhino is used to bring in the daemon. The HQ character got out of the rhino and moved towards my speederHis havoc rhino moved out 12" in between my stunned rhino and the land speeder. The havocs piled out, in a semi-circle around the rhino so they have a choice of targets. Plague Marines that had been chasing my scouts move in their rhino 12", hop out in a spot where they can see him. The lone oblit moves through the building setting up to assault my combat squad in the lower part of the building. The lesser daemons moved away from the land speeder, moving and then running toward my objective. Havocs shot at the side armor of my vindicator, immobilizing it and destroying the weapon. My lone scout is finally killed under a volley of fire from the plague marines. His character assaults my land speeder, managing to destroy the multi-melta and stunning the vehicle. The Greater daemon assaults the vindicator, destroying the weapon on that. Lone oblit assaults and kills 1 in my combat squad with the missile launcher. They lose combat but stay. Mathis still valiantly takes repeated powerfist attacks with no effect. Also the lone plague marine (from the squad that the greater daemon came from) had move, shot the melta gun at my stunned rhino (failing to do anything) and assaulted with a krak grenade, but failed to damage it.

Bottom Turn 4
We measured and found that both my devs and the combat squad that ran before were within 6" of the oblit, so they both ran off the board. Pretty much at this point, any notion of me keeping my objective secured was a lost cause, so I decided to use my remaining vehicles and combat squad in an effort to stall and contest my objective, while my combat squad in a rhino dashed full speed at his objective, so I could at least draw, if not squeeze out a lucky win. I shot at the greated daemon with the storm bolter from my 1 vindicator that's functioning and rapid fired with the combat squad with plasma cannon, did a wound to the greater daemon. Close combat resulted in 1 more from the combat squad being killed.

*No pic of this turn*

After this point, the game was mostly over. Over the next 3 turns, he used his daemon, oblit, havocs, character, and plague marine to wipe out all my units on my objective.
Only part that made it kinda close was what was happening at his objective
Plague Marine rhino (from the squad in his deployment zone) moved to block my rhino's access to his objective. His plague marines moved to shoot the rhino and exploded it. The marines were unharmed and passed pinning, but because they used plasmas, they couldn't assault. My marines used bottom of turn 5 to move and shoot the rhino (with the aim to assault after, to get close enough to the objective), they wrecked it, so they were unable to assault. The plague marines shot and charged my marines, but rolled poorly in close combat. It pretty much became a fight between the powerfists in each unit and my powerfist was actually doing better. By the bottom of turn 7, I had the sarge and 1 guy, against the enemy champ. The enemy champ missed his attacks. I managed 1 hit, but I failed to wound...I was one die roll away from making the primary objective a draw.



Results - I lost in all three objectives and he got all three tactical bonuses.

I got 0 out of 48 possible points, which left me at 58 out of 144 battle points. He got all 48 points and took Best General in the tournament.

Observations - The die rolls were somewhat fickle, but I'm sure there were many mistakes on my part. I think I should have elected to go first so I could have stopped his rhinos before they got moving (or at least slowed them down).

Overall Tournament Thoughts

Despite how badly I got slaughtered (It's been quite a while since I've been beaten this badly), I really enjoyed the game. The other person was a very fun person to play with, as we were relaxed, joking back and forth, and handled any rules issues quickly and amiably. This game and the first round game ended up making the tournament very enjoyable. The 2nd round was a bad experience, but it was so out-weighed by the fun I had in the first and third rounds that I'd do the whole thing over again.

The last battle really killed any chance of me being in the top 10 in the tournament standings, I ended up 15th out of 24 (I believe there were 24, I'm not sure) overall as I took hits in my painting score (I figured that would be the case coming in, because I had painted enough to satisfy the requirement).

I got what I came to get out of it, getting some games in against some skilled players and learning. I definitely learned from the results of these games how to better manage my own army and learned the capabilities of enemies that I hadn't played against before. I will definitely be going to the next tournament they'll be running later this month.

What's fun about these tournaments is that you can finish painting, swapping, or adding new units each month to improved your appearance score or just try new lists.

Good luck in the next one; I hope to start getting back to those things soon and play you sometime.

- Blackbone

Indeed I'll be picking up some basing flock tonight and plan to have my army based, as well as touching up on more of the painting.

If you ever want a game at the bunker or somewhere in the chicagoland area, send me a pm.

Wow, that last game was a shellacking. One of the cool things about 40k is that it can still be fun getting whooped (though not always, of course).

Thanks for taking the time to write these up and I look forward to your next batreps!