[DCM]
Tilter at Windmills
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Here’s part one of a tournament report. I’ll try to have the whole thing up Dakka soon. Sorry for the lack of pics, and the lack of editing. I bashed this out in spare moments at work today, after doing 14 hour days Sunday and Monday, which has fried my brain a bit. If any of my opponent have corrections, they are entirely welcome.
I played in a 2k tournament at the Game Castle in Londonderry, NH this past weekend. 24 players, including a few from upstate and Mass. I notice that a bunch of the guys from out of town (like the Lebanon crew) seem to be solid, competitive players, which is always nice to have visit. I was told by one of my opponents that the upstate guys had taken the prizes last time around, so I was looking forward to striking a blow for the locals. As well as my tournament team, Cold Steel Mercenaries.
I brought a six-troop CSM list-
Prince w/Warp Time, Wings, no mark
Sorc w/jump pack, MoS, lash, personal icon
6 Terminators w/hvy flamer & chainfist, power fist & icon of CG, 2x combi-melta, 2x combi-flamer.
10 CSM w/2 melta, fist, Icon of CG, Rhino
10 CSM w/2 flamers, fist, Icon of CG, Rhino
10 CSM w/Lascannon, Meltagun, Icon
5 CSM w/melta, Rhino
8 Lesser Daemons
5 Lesser Daemons
2 Oblits
2 Oblits
6 Havocs w/4 missiles, Icon
Round 1 was Spearhead Capture & Control.
I played against Tom M, who I had faced in the second round of the Ardboyz preliminary at the GC this year. Last time I had barely squeaked out the Win, coming very close to the Draw, except for a bit of dice luck and careful play. We had a board with a good amount of cover- a large ruin in the middle which could easily be seen through but gave cover to anything, lots of scattered hills and one or two other ruins, with a couple of smallish impassible formations.
Tom brought Vulkan, an Epistolary w/Null Zone & the AP3 flamer template power, 5 TH & SS terminators in a regular landraider w/extra armor, 2 Tac squads in Rhinos, one with plasmacannon, the other with missile, both with fist sgts & meltguns, a tac squad in a pod w/fist, missile, melta, an Ironclad in a pod, a multimelta dread in a pod, and a thunderfire cannon.
Tom won the roll and made me go first. I put my objective medium-deep in my quadrant, next to a piece of area terrain my havocs set up in for cover. I had a good-sized terrain piece- a wrecked landraider, to hide my prince, sorc, and 2 full rhinos behind centrally, put my 1-melta rhino to the right and my 10 man foot squad left by the quadrant edges, next to hills for the rhino to get cover and the foot squad to climb up on for better sightlines. My Oblits went in area terrain flanking the havocs to give protection from the dropping meltas, with my units spread around so there would be meltas in the vicinity of anything which dropped close. Tom put his objective a bit further forward, near a large ruin which was almost at the center of the table, though really more on his side. He set up with the termies & libby in landraider threatening a push, vulkan and the 5-man combat squads with Fists in rhinos ready to support, with the other halves and the TF deep in his corner to lend fire support/ready to clear off his objective if I got on it.
T1: I started by popping one of his rhinos and driving forward with my rhinos, with the 10 man foot squad climbing a difficult hill next to them for better shooting lanes. Sorc attaches to foot squad for safety. Tom responded by dropping both of his dreads into my DZ, both within 8” or so of the table edge, but both HIT. The MM dread zapped an Oblit, and the Ironclad shot at my 1-melta squad’s rhino but only blew off the bolter. The landraider moved up, Vulkan joined a squad but hung back, the thunderfire put some wounds on my big foot squad.
T2: Full rhinos forward, getting into threat range for the landraider. Sorc separates from foot squad to fly just behind the 2 melta-rhino, also on the left flank. Warp time prince headed for the dreads, the surviving right-side oblit got into 6” of them, left side oblits positioned for over 12” multimelta shots. Right-side melta CSM squad’s rhino shuffled a bit, staying within 6” of the Ironclad for melta goodness. My terminators showed up, and dropped deep- going within 6” of the Landraider with the intention to pop it and leave his terminators with the choice of reversing field to counter mine, or let me go munch on his tac squads. My terminators scattered, but actually parallel to the LR, so staying within 6”, and closer to his tac marines. Not bad, except that in shooting all of my melta missed or failed to penetrate. That’s two on the dreads and two on the LR. My multimeltas and ML didn’t do anything useful either. My prince managed to kill the regular dread.
On Tom’s turn his third pod showed up, dropping in front of my havocs to block their LOS, and splitting squads- one half with melta and fist tried to fry another oblit (but I made my cover save), and the other hosed down the one surviving oblit from the other squad with bolter fire, to little effect. LR drives up, termies spill out, ready to assault my rhinos (but will need 6s). Vulkan and squad move forward into the big ruin (my 2-flamer tac squad’s rhino is just on the other side of said ruin, almost dead-center on the table). His Ironclad moved over towards my right-side rhino, and he popped said Rhino in shooting, allowing him to assault the contents. His TF put some wounds on my havocs, but they made a bunch of saves. He immobilized my 2-melta squad’s rhino with a shot or two. Null Zone combined with a direct Hit from his plasmacannon and no failed to-wound rolls wiped out my terminators in a single shot. My 5-man CSM squad managed to hold against the Ironclad. His terminators assault both of my Rhinos, whiffing against the still-mobile one, but auto-hitting and Exploding the one holding my dual melta squad. My little squad only lost a couple, and held against the Ironclad.
T3: 8-girl Daemons show up. Going for the gusto, I put them forward next to my melta squad. I plan to hose down the TH & SS termies with bolt pistols, flamers, meltas, and then assault with a pile of attacks. Maybe add a plasmacannon if I get off a lash. Flamer squad disembarks, meltas move forward, sorc positions for Lash and potential assault, my single oblit positions for a PC shot on his termies (I spread out the surrounding CSM squads a bit, so we won’t suffer too badly on a bad scatter). Warp time prince moves to 1” away from the Ironclad. Left side oblits, 10-man foot squad, and havocs (who are blocked from shooting anything but pods or the tacs right in front of them) all move toward the tac marines who dropped in, for assault. Single oblit moves to start popping pods.
Left Oblits TL-flame the two squads bunched around the new pod, killing a few, including the fist. Single oblit whiffs with his TL meltagun against a pod. In shooting I manage to lash past the hood, and Hit with my plasmacannon, killing 2-3 termies and wounding the libby. Flamers, pistols, and meltaguns kill the rest down to one termie and finish off the libby. Last termie falls back, but is within 6” of my sorc.
My big foot squad blows its difficult terrain to get off the hill and can’t assault the melta half of his tac squad in my DZ, but the oblits make it and wipe them out. Havocs assault the other half, everyone whiffs/saves in that one. Prince assaults, and despite hitting 4-5 times with Warp Time, totally fails to penetrate the Ironclad. Ironclad wounds him back a couple of times, and the remnants of my little CSM squad run for it, never to rally, as there'll be a pod within 6" at the start of my next turn.
Tom’s T3- His terminator falls back less than an inch from the table edge. His squad with Vulkan moves up through the ruin to get my dual-flamer squad, which is less than a foot away from his objective, across the ruin. His LR pivots to nail my sorc with both las, and blows his head off. His other stuff largely sits and shoots, getting a few wound against my CSMs here and there, and killing one or two LDs. Vulkan and his boys assault my CSM squad with flamers and started kicking the crap out of them. Vulkan made his save against my fist, I killed one or two Tacs. Ironclad wounds my prince again, who fails to penetrate AGAIN.
T4: My little 5-man LD squad appears, and of course summons near the havocs to go back and hold my own objective. Tom was not expecting this. He thought I had basically abandoned it and we were just going to fight over his. Hooray for pulling a scoring unit out of my… warp. My 8-girl pack and 2-melta CSM squad move forward toward his LR and objective, with the LDs spreading out to give the CSMs cover, and Running to make sure they’re within 6” of the TH termie to make him run off the table. My foot CSM squad and two oblits start putting lascannon shots downrange at the landraider, since due to intervening terrain they can’t see or reach much else. I blow off the heavy bolter. The 2-melta squad doesn’t glance. My prince finally finishes off the Ironclad. My havocs continue their epic struggle against the 4-5 man combat squad in my DZ, to little effect. In the ruin, Vulkan kills a few more, but my CSMs are winning against his regular SMs, and I finally squeek a PF wound past Vulkan’s invulnerable. I can’t remember whether his remaining tac guys died from No Retreat here, or whether they fell back and I shot them with pistols/flamers later. They didn’t do anything else much, anyway.
Tom’s go- The TH termie runs off the board. His LR moves away from my stuff laterally, to his long table edge, so away from my meltas, but within 12” of his objective for tank shock, and opening up sight lines a bit better for his firebase back in his home corner. His remaining fisty half of a tac squad loads up in their Rhino for a push onto the objective next turn. His pods shoot at my 5-man lesser daemons, killing one. His TF puts a bunch of wounds on my 2-melta squad, we lose a few, and some LDs. A quick note- his tac squad ML and PC have also been contributing wounds here and there, and I’m glad my saves were pretty good, because I have probably never seen someone roll so many Scatter HITs in a game, which the pods and the thunderfire made particularly dramatic. It was amazing. Well over 50%, probably closer to 60 or 70%, not even counting the two which scattered 4” or less and thus counted as Hits. Anyway, it didn’t add up to too much this turn, though his other shots wounded my prince as well, but I made the save. In the assault phase my havocs finally finished off the tacs in my DZ, Vulkan’s squad smashed
T5: My few remaining CSMs in the middle of the board and LDs run up to basically surround the objective on three sides, trying to make it so that even if he tank shocks, we’ll still have guys in 3”. My dual flamer squad is down to just the champ and one or two other guys. My LDs are doing pretty well, but my 2-melta CSM squad is depleted, and just on the edge of 3”, if that. I put long-distance lascannon and Havoc ML fire and the LR and the tac Rhino, trying to stop him from getting there. After my meltas missing and failing to penetrate all game long, my Las and MLs finally come through, Immobilizing the LR AND popping the Rhino. Then the cherry on top- Tom blew the Pin test for bailing out of the destroyed Rhino. He no longer had any units capable of getting to his objective this turn.
Tom’s: His Pods in my DZ were not able to kill off my remaining LDs, though his other tac, Rhino storm bolters, LR lascannons, and Thunderfire blasted the crap out of my units on his objective. I think I had two models or so left there at the end of the turn. Actually, he may have finished off my Daemon Prince too. Can’t recall now.
So we rolled for Random game length, and the game ended. From turn 4 Tom was fighting for the Draw, unless his pod SBs did really heroic work, which I was not going to give them another turn for (assuming three oblits, a squad of havocs, and maybe a daemon prince could deal with three pods). But I definitely lucked out a bit in pulling off the win at the end, since his Tacs could have easily cleared out the last couple of marines from the objective if they just hasn’t blown their pin test. Just like last time- I eked my way out of what could have easily been a well-deserved Draw.
Scoring was Loss: 8, Draw: 12, Win: 16, with +1 each for killing most expensive unit, most expensive HQ, and having a scoring unit in the enemy DZ at the end of the game. So I won 18 to 9 (10?).
Teasers:
Game two was v. Tau- Pitched Battle Annihilation.
Commander Shadowsun DS-ing, an Ethereal leading a squad of three broadsides with a bunch of shield drones, an elite suit with positional relay, drones and missile pod, a squad of 7-8 pathfinders in a warfish, a squad of 10-12 FCW on foot, squad leader with markerlight, split fire, drones, a squad of 8 gun drones DS-ing, a squad of six FCW with carbines in a Warfish, another squad of FCW in a Warfish, and a Railhead.
He went first.
Game three was v. Nurgle CSM- Dawn of War Seize Ground- 5 objectives
Typhus riding in a Landraider, four squads of 7 Plagues in Rhinos w/fist champs, two each using double flamers and double meltas, two squad of 3 oblits.
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