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Hi all,

I'm not a regular tourney player, but I do enjoy it once in a while. Since my squeaky waagh is still under construction, I decided to take my trusty old IG for a spin.

9th Conflict was a small torunet (100 competitors total), with a fantasy and a 40K half. One-day tournament, so three battles - standard format in Belgium. 75 points could be earned through battles, 25 through painting.


Here's my 1600 point list:

HQ
CCS, 4*melta, astropath

CCS, 3* melta

ELITES

Marbo

Psyker battle squad (full strength), chimera

TROOPS

shotgun vets, 3* melta

lasgun vets, 3* plasma, chimera with hull heavy flamer

A Platoon
- PCS, 4* flamer, chimera
- Squad 1: autocannon, grenade launcher
- Squad 1: autocannon, grenade launcher, commissar with power weapon


FAST ATTACK

Vendetta

Vendetta

Valkyrie


HEAVY SUPPORT

Leman Russ excecutioner, plasma cannon sponsons

Game 1: Vincent, Witch hunters

Vincent had a lovely painted witch hunter army, consisting of (by memory):

- St Celestine
- 3 deathcult assasins
- Eversor
- Inquisitor w/ stuff
- 3 identical sister squads w/ flamers in Rhino
- sisters with heavy flamers in Immolator
- sisters with meltaguns in rhino
- 3 exorcist tanks

Pic of his army:


The mission was objectices (4), with Dawn of War deployment.
Vincent deployed nothing, I deployed my two infantry squads, blobbed, so they could hold up assassins if necessary. There was one objective in the middle, two on my right, and 1 on my left flank. Basic plan was to go strong right and middle, and then contest the leftmost objective. My Valks and vendetta reserved to outflank, as did his Eversor. His 3 deathcult assassins infiltrated on my right flank.

This pic was taken after we both had out first and second turn (deployment... wasn't that interesting and the T1 pic failed )



By this point, I had roasted two of his assassins with my PCS and shot the third. I also immobilized the immolator. In his turn two his Eversor shows, and charges the PCS. My plasmavets on the left flank get shot out of their chimera and are pinned, spending my T2 cowering in a crater. More importantly, my PCS holds out till my turn 3:


You can just make out the plasmavets, who proceeded to kill the Eversor right after he sliced up my platoon commander. Meanwhile, my valks had arrived (all my reserves made it on T2). The next two pics will say it all :


For those wondering: I dropped the valk...



The sisters managed to survive thanks to acts of faith, and then messed around a bit with my CCS, which lasted till the end of the battle. My meltavets hopped back in their transport and rushed to the middle objective. Then I made my first mistake: I charged Marbo into St Celestine and here one remaining sister, figuring I could take'em down with some luck. Of course, I fluffed, Marbo died, and they consolidate 5" towards the centre objective. They then survive a torrent of fire (20 lasguns, multilaser, 3 meltaguns, 3 plasmaguns and then some...), and contest the centre objective at the end. My plasma vets, which I had dismounted after theire ride's 12" move, were then shot to bits by a sister squad which had been hiding behind a building (and I had therefore forgotten - pretty stupid, I know). Scratch one objective holder.... At this point (start of turn 6), I had one (bottom right), he had one (top left), one was contested, and one was without troops nearby. So, in a final gambit for victory, I flew my Valk over to his objective to contest. Immobilised on a 1: of course... And since it was moving flat out, it was destroyed. After the battle, we measured it out, and it turns out I didn't need to enter the terrain to be within 3", adding insult to injury. Still, it was tense game against a fun opponent, so I didn't mind a draw.


Game 2: Sander, Eldar

I've played Sander before, and he's a very good opponent, a good sportsman as well and knows his rules; he tends to finish pretty high. Last time we met, he crushed my guard with drop podding Ironclads and bike squads, so I was happy I was up against his Eldar this time! Mission was capture and control (2 objective) with spearhead. His list consisted of a farseer on a jetbike, two dire avenger squads in wave serpents, 5 fire dragons in a wave serpent, three scatter laser war walker, a 3-man jetbike squad, harlequins with shadowseer and troupe master,a nd a wraithlord. [/size]

Here's our deployment:





I took first turn because I felt that, if I wanted to shut down his farseer and his wave serpents, I needed to do it before they were zipping all over the place and going invulnerable/flat out on me. So I scouted my valks up agressively:



This payed up in a way that pretty much ended the battle: after my first turn, two wave serpents were destroyed and one immoblised, thanks to the gunnery of my vendettas, autocannons, and my CCS:


The two turretless tanks are destroyed, the other one immobilised. This pretty much ended the battle: I flamed his harlies, lucked out and destroyed his wraithlord in one go with 3 meltagun hits, and took out his bikes with marbo's demo charge. He managed to reduce my mobility enough that I couldn't get troops near his objective, but I did contest it with a vendetta, giving me a solid victory. It would have been a massacre had we played for 6 turns though: all he had left was 4 dire avengers, one fire dragon, and that immoblised wave serpent that shook off al the other fire for the rest of the battle. here's the end shot:



I felt a bit sorry for him and bought him a drink afterwards; it's no fun if the dice kill you off. He hadn't had a turn and all his mobility was gone. Still, solid victory to me!


Game 3, Marc's Orks

Marc had a very small ork army, consisting of two units of deffkoptas, 4 and 5strong, each with a buzzsaw, two battlewagons packed witrh 'ard boyz, a KFF Mek, a warboss, and a looted wagon with differentiated nobz w/painboy. Mission was annihilation with pitched battle deployment. He had 10 KPs, I had 18...

After deployment and scout moves, the table looked like this:


We didn't really move much after that. I took out his two kopta squads and destroyed his battlewagons over the first two turns, and then he just hunkered down and waited for the game to end. And, because of that I got impatient. Not blaming Marc here, my own dumb mistake. What did I do? I used Marbo agressively to kill off the koptas quicker, and he got fried for his troubles. I'd lost two vendettas, a vet squad, vs his 2 battlewagons and kopta squads. Then Marbo evens up the points... To add insult to injury, the looted wagon was immoblised pretty much all game, but I never managed to roll high enough to kill it depriving me of victory. Ah well, that'll teach me. Still, Marc was a fun guy. It was only a one-day tourney, so that's where it ended.

I placed 13th overall, on a total of 44 players. Not bad, but not superb either. I feel that, had I played a bit better, top 10 would've been possible. Then again, I'm relying on general tactical knowledge these days, since I don't have much time to play (job and family life eating up time), so it could've been worse. More training should be able to put me higher in the rankings.

To end, a review of my list:

CCS: cheap, enhance their ability with orders, 3-4 meltaguns... I love'em. No reason no to take them really.

Marbo: I think he has great potential, but also that I didn't use him well. I'll reserve my judgement for later.

Psyker battle squad: did their job; but I tend to roll 10 a lot on 2D6 with these guys. The ability to reduce Ld rocks, and the blast is nice backup-power. Still, anti-psyker shuts them down, whether it's an inquisitor or a farseer.

Veterans: great. Period. Cheap and cheerful, lots of special weapons, BS4. But they're fragile, and I tend to rush them out of their vehicle for that bit of extra shooting when I should be trying to keep them alive for the objectives.

Platoons: blobs are great. People don't even bother shooting at them, they're good in combat, and they're dirt cheap. Next time, I'll try and add a third squad, or a SWS with flamers to ride in a vendetta

Vendettas: as has been said by everybody: great. I take them for their transport ability first, so the lascannons are a nice addition. Downright vicious for a mere 130 points

Valkyrie: I took one because I had it assembled and because I was tired of my banewolf getting blown up every game, and it's good. Not so over-the-top good as a vendetta though. Still, at 130 with missile pods, priced a bit more honestly then the vendetta. Also, it's threat rating goes down a lot, making it more survivable with all those AV12 targets on the table.

Executioner: great terror weapon, and those blasts are nice. Still, it's very pricey. For those points, I could've had a manticore and a griffon, or almost two basilisks... I might try those next time.

Overall I liked my list, though I missed my artillery (I had basically cut my Manticore from my 1750 list to make this one). Next Time, I'll try and add more infantry and maybe artillery instead of the ecexcutioner. Marbo and the PBS need some more experimenting with.

So, that's it, a great thank you to the people who organised 9th conflict and kept it running smoothly despite faling laptops and other misery.

Hope you enjoyed the read!

Good report. I did feel a little bad for the Eldar player as the game was pretty much lost on turn 1. Not sure if I chalk it up to misplayed deployment or horribly rolls on his part.

1600 points is an interesting points choice. How did you like it? In the US, 1500 is typically frowned upon, but 1750+ is the norm. One or two bad rolls and a 1500 point army can get crushed as there is typically very little redundancy.

it's comforting to see that they're playing 40K in belgium
and that they can speak fairly well english

Sarigar: Thanks! I felt a bit bad fot the Eldar player too, but in the end, he relied on luck to see him through my Alpha strike (which this army isn't even particularly geared for), and it didn't pay off. Afterwards, he said he was expecting to lose 1 wave serpent, statistically: 2 lascannon hits for each vendetta, one glance/penetrate, one wave serpent immobilised or destroyed. The ccs with the 4 meltas were always gonna fry one though; so I felt he took a bit too much of gamble there. And he lucked out on not having a turn 6 . To me, it was a combination of subpar deployment and some good luck on my part. Still, the previous battle he'd done the same to me: two ironclads drop next to my guard, my meltas fluff, they eat up my army... He always plays very agressively, and this time it didn't pay off.

1600 points is interesting indeed. you can have some toys, but not all'of em. As I talked to people about their armies, most had simply dropped a 150-point unit from their 1750 armies though, so I'm not sure it really adds much more tactical challenges...

NoToTheMan: yes, Belgium is a civilized country. And no doubt you meant to say we speak English fairly well?

Wow, very nice report! I enjoyed the read. It was short and sweet.
It was funny seeing someone called vincent playing sisters, because I play sisters myself and my name is also vincent... ^^

Belgium rules!

Jupiter wrote:Wow, very nice report! I enjoyed the read. It was short and sweet.
It was funny seeing someone called vincent playing sisters, because I play sisters myself and my name is also vincent... ^^

Belgium rules!

Thanks, glad you like it

It wasn't you I played now, was it?

Just be thankful I didn't say fairly good English

nice battle report I enjoyed it very much.