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There are a few caveats on my performance at this event. First, I was probably running off of maybe 8 hours of sleep from the last two days, I drove up on Friday (an 18 hour drive) and woke up early to attend, so my brain probably wasn't functioning all that well. Second, I went into this event with a total laid back attitude, I didn't want to play really competitive, I was just happy sitting back and rolling some dice.

I took a build I have been particularly happy with recently:

Vulkan
Librarian w/ Terminator Armor, Storm Shield, Null Zone, Vortex
5 Thunderhammer Terminators
Land Raider Crusader
10-man Tactical Squad w/ Combi-melta, Flamer, Lascannon
10-man Tactical Squad w/ Combi-melta, Flamer, Lascannon
2 MM Attack Bikes
2 Land Speader Squadron w/ 2 MM, 1 HF
10-man Devastator Squad w/ 2 Plasma Cannons, 2 Missile Launchers
Thunderfire Cannon

I know I am going to get a lot of "your list sucks" comments, but please read the results and judge for yourself.


First game was against a fairly competitive Tyranid list, from memory:

Flying Hive Tyrant
Tyranid Prime with Boneswords
5 Warriors w/ Deathspitters
3 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes
Doom in a Pod
Genestealers w/ Broodlord
Genestealers
Tervigon
10 Gaunts
10 or 15 Gargoyles
Trygon

Between the sheer amount of blast templates my army puts out and all the low ap shooting, I was doing fairly well. Zoanthropes died on turn 1 to Zull Zone, doom dropped down, did little damage and died in one shot from Null Zone and a Twin-linked MM. My Devastators where eaten by outflanking Genestealers and the Hive Tyrant, but the Tyrant went down to shooting. At the end of the game, all I had to do was roll high enough on the difficult terrain with my assault terminators, and I would have easily sealed the tie, and if the game went on another turn, I would have easily sealed the win on the primary as I had two easy kill points I could have gotten and the rest of his stuff was to far away. At the end though I lost the Primary by a single kill point, but tied the secondary and tertiary.


Second game was against the good olde Deamons, his list from Memory:

Skulltaker on Juggernaut
The Masque
5 Blood Crushers
18 Deamonettes
10 or more Blood Letters
6 Horrors w/ Changling
6 Horrors
7 Plague Bearers
Deamon Prince
Soul Grinder

It was a tough list, but I was very fortunate that he got is non preferred wave. So he put down the Plague Bearers, a unit of horrors, the blood letters, and the deamonettes near the center of the board. He made me go first, so the result was at turn two, I had all my shooting on the board against 5+ save deamons. I apologized for what was about to happen, casted Null Zone, and got to work. Deamonettes all but disappeared to Null Zone and the cover ignoring Thunderfire templates, Vulkan with 5 Tactical Marines in a Rhino took out the Blood Letters with their flamers, Plasma Cannons took the Plague bearers down to one, and the Land Raider Hurricane boltered the Horrors dead. After that the only thing that kept him in the game was 2 Deamonettes holding an objective in his deployment zone and a single plague bearer holding an objective in mine, both out of LOS. At the end of the game I held two and he held two so we drew on the primary, drew on the secondary, but I won on the Victory Point Tertiary. Again, if the game went on another turn, I would have easily gotten the Primary, and if it went on to turn 7, I could have secured the secondary as well.

Third game was against a Space Wolves player, his list:

Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf Cav
5 Thunderwolf Cav
Rune Priest
10 Grey Hunters in Drop Pod
10 Grey Hunters in Rhino
10 Grey Hunters in Rhino
Long Fang Squad
Land Raider Crusader

He took turn one moved his Thunderwolf unit to the center of the table, he was out of charge range (which I did on purpose), then I went. Between my shooting and his bad dice rolls, I whittled the Thunderwolf Cav unit down to 1 and the Lord, who where then charged by Thunderhammers and Vulkan. Needless to say, it didn't go well for him. Vulkan by himself broke two units of grey hunters and they fled off the table. At the end of the game, he had two Long Fangs left and I easily had all three Victory conditions.

So with a non-competitive list and a total laid back non-competitive attitude I got:

Primary: Loss - Tie - Win
Secondary: Tie - Tie - Win
Tertiary: Tie - Win - Win

I didn't stick around long enough to see the results as we wanted to get back on the road, but I am pretty satisfied with my performance, all things considering. Next year I intend to bring the Blood Angels painted to a higher standard then my Salamanders and make a real go off it.

Mahu wrote:I didn't stick around long enough to see the results as we wanted to get back on the road,

You... You drove?!

Congrats on having a great time! That's really what it's about anyway. Well, that and the drinking.

Lorek wrote:

Mahu wrote:I didn't stick around long enough to see the results as we wanted to get back on the road,

You... You drove?!

Congrats on having a great time! That's really what it's about anyway. Well, that and the drinking.

Yes, from Orlando, Florida to Lombard, Illinios. Took us 22 hours the way up and 16 hours the way down. (The way up took longer because I-65 in Kentucky was shut down).

I would honestly do it again, as between sleep rotation and such, the trip isn't half bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Results are posted! I got 23rd out of 110.

Not too shabby.

Mahu wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Results are posted! I got 23rd out of 110.

Not too shabby.

Not too shabby!! That was amazing!!

I think people often get worked up over how "optimized" a tournament list is or isn't.

The reality is that the game is played at the table.

The influence of player skill and the randomness brought to the game by dice rolls is often underappreciated by the internet crowd.

The fact is that there's nothing wrong with the list you played with. It has a number of really strong, useful units that work well together.

Congratulations on a good showing.

Flamers + nullzone? Wow. I would have apologized too

Not too shabby!! That was amazing!!

Thank you for the kind words. My goal next year is to place in the top ten. The way I look at it is 23rd in a 110 person tournament is roughly the equivalent to 4th or 5th in a 20-man tournament. Not too bad for the attitude I had going into it, but nothing to write home about.

Congratulations on a good showing.

Thank you.

Flamers + nullzone? Wow. I would have apologized too

One of the reasons the Thunderfire cannon is so good is because of the cover ignoring template + null zone versus Deamons. I have yet to totally loose a game to Deamons this year playing Marines. Once you know to shoot up the scoring units first and avoid combat with the slow blood crushers, you games tend to go much faster. The Blood Crusher came down very aggressively, I just shot them up and baited them around a piece of terrain, they where a non-issue.

Again guys, thanks for the kind words.

Congrats on a strong showing!

I've been toying with running a Thunderfire Cannon myself lately. Since you said your list is non-competitive, would you consider it in one of your "competitive" builds? for the recond, I don't really have a problem with your list at all as I think that the after it gets to a point, the list is only as good as the player in charge of it and the dice that player is rolling.

I've been noticing more and more that all these builds people have that keep in mind the various metagame builds of the various armies tend to fall flat against assortments of random units that they would call crappy if they saw them on paper.

It's kind of refreshing, and it makes me nervous. On the same note, while I can think and prepare for "PBS guard" or "Tervigon spam nids" or even "thunderwolf spam wolves", it's hard to plan for "some tacs, some termies, some devs, thunderfire, random HQ".

I am of the opinion that list building isn't everything. Unlike the Timmah's and Stelek's of the world, I recognize that tournament performance isn't totally up to what you put on the table.

If anything that is 60% of the equation. I would have loved to see a "critical mass" list across the table from me, I have enough shooting to seriously reduce what is coming back to me, and I can easily out assault it on turn 3 or 4.

Synergies and diversity matter more then anything in the game nowadays. Vulkan loves vehicle mounted MMs and Thunderhammer Terminators. Thunderfire Cannons and Devastators love each other. I spent 350 points on 8 blast templates at range, and they worked every game.

How many points were you playing with?

The championship was 1850.

I just checked and the last time I played in the championships was 07 and I got 118 out of 150ish.

I also placed higher on my side then Black Blow Fly and other names that I know.

So I am still rather happy.

Nicely done! We will have to try and cross paths next year and say hi to one another.

Null Zone is possibly the best physcic power avaliable to Librarians, especially against daemons That coupled with Template weapons meansthat you can destroy a daemon army easily, twice as much if you have 2 libbys. For then you can cover most of the table with Null Zone...does make your libby a bit of a target tho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn75IvDJpc4

I would contend the idea that your marine army isnt competitive. I have played something just like it a few times, and it is very nasty. The attrition from the shooting is horrible, and it can still break the back of certain units in assault. It may not be "netlist, critical mass" competitive, but anyone with two brain cells knows that spam and redundancy is hardly what makes an army good. Against someone who knew what they were doing with this army, id be afraid.

Thank you for the compliment.

This type of list is only non competitive to the spam happy enthusiasts. There are a few things I can do to make things more optimized, but this list is built around synergy and being able to address fundamental army types.

I may write an article on what I mean.

TBH a lot of spam happy enthusiasts dont know how to play, and rely on the army to win them games. Some armies dont have any real option with competitive builds, both varieties of eldar and tau come to mind, in that they basically need to be fully meched up to win.

But the newer books can bring the pain with hybrid lists.

and thunderfire cannons are one of the best units in the marine book.

Eldar doesn't have to be meched up to win. IMO, foot eldar is actually stronger than mech eldar.

I like your list, with the exception of the devs, which I (and most of the world it seems) find are meh and overcosted in C:SM

Tnx for the report

Interesting list, I am surprised by the lack of Fists (or even Power Swords) on the Tactical squads. How did the Lascannons work out? I sometimes use one Lascannon not tried taking a pair.

Whenever I look at Devastators I always think they would be better as two Stern-guard squads with two heavy weapons each. Where you combat squading them or firing all the weapons at one unit? I always get annoyed with "gets Hot" on plasma cannons. They seem to backfire a lot for me.

Great list. I'm also curious about your thoughts on the devs. And how do you play your tacticals, are they 9 ablative wounds for your lascannon or do you have them move around?

Eldar doesn't have to be meched up to win. IMO, foot eldar is actually stronger than mech eldar.

Mech Eldar is superior to foot eldar for so many reasons. However, Foot Eldar can be highly competitive in the right hands.

I like your list, with the exception of the devs, which I (and most of the world it seems) find are meh and overcosted in C:SM

Whenever I look at Devastators I always think they would be better as two Stern-guard squads with two heavy weapons each. Where you combat squading them or firing all the weapons at one unit? I always get annoyed with "gets Hot" on plasma cannons. They seem to backfire a lot for me.

Devestators have their place, especially in a list that can benefit from 3+ cover saves in a good deal of games, they can be a liability if you don't use them right, but they have their place. In my list, they provide additional fire support and more template love.

Interesting list, I am surprised by the lack of Fists (or even Power Swords) on the Tactical squads. How did the Lascannons work out? I sometimes use one Lascannon not tried taking a pair.

Great list. I'm also curious about your thoughts on the devs. And how do you play your tacticals, are they 9 ablative wounds for your lascannon or do you have them move around?

In my early lists, Power Weapons where a staple. Over time you realize that Tactical Squads are not front line troops. They are support troops and not meant to be aggressive. Lascannons work in this list because I have the option of pulling out a combat squad and supporting the Devastator gun-line. It also gives me high strength low ap that is crucial against TMCs and the like.

Marines are more about flexibility then defined roles. The sooner you think less about a specific role for your unit and more about how each unit supports the other and what threats you can handle with what, Marines tend to work much better.