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So I went to Ancient Wonders in Tualatin, OR for the Sunday 'Ard Boyz. I had not played a game outside of my home since back at Dakka before I moved seven years ago, so this was sure to be an experience.

The store is a FLGS and had about 10 tables or so. 20+ people signed up for the prelim and only about 13 showed up. :(

There was a fair smattering of armies there although strangely enough I don't believe there was a single BA, ork or DE army. 2 WH, 1 Necron, 1 SW, 1 Tyranid, 2 Mechdar, 1 Fast Daemon, 1 Guard, 1 White Scar, 1 BT, 1 Ultra/Codex, 1 Vulcan (IIRC). I grabbed army lists for all my opponents, but failed to bring them home, so I'll try to do it from memory.

My List: (49 KP for Mission 3)
Canoness - Jump Pack, Eviscerator, Book of SL, Cloak of Saint Aspira
Inq Lord - Psy Hood, Bolter-StakeCB, 2xWarriors w/PlasmaG, 2xSage, Divine Pronouncement
(2) Celestians x5 - 2 MeltaG, Immo (S-EA)
(4) Battle Sisters x10 - HeavyF, MeltaG, VetSS, Book of SL, Rhino (S-EA)
Seraphim x8 - 2xHandF, VetSS, Book, Eviscerator
Veteran Squad - 3xMeltaG, Demolitions, Chimera (HB/ML)
Infantry Platoon - 2xInfSquad w/AC, 1xPCS w/LasC, 1xHWT (3xAutoC)
(3) Exorcists

Not a super 'Ard list, but a fun one. I really only took my Seraphim because they look good. I probably could have replaced them with another Celestian Squad and done better


Game 1
Opponent - White Scars
Khan with big Command Squad - Champ, Apoth, etc
Big Troop Bike Squad
Chaplain on Bike - With Big Troop Bike
Techmarine on Bike
LRR with Assault Termies x5 (LCx3 and THx2)
2xRazorB with Tac Squad (PlasmaCannon)
1xRazorB with Tac Squad (???)
3 x Land Speeder (mix of Options)
Vindicator

Okay, 5 Objectives. Table had a almost 2 foot cube ruin in the center of the board. I won roll for objective placement, he won roll for first turn. I seized!

Here's his deployment. He bunkers up his Tac in the trench and walls his vehicles on my right. One bike squad is set to swoop around on each side.


Turn 1
I push hard on every front and parking lot all the clear ground. My guard spread out and hold the two objectives in my Deployment zone. He learns to hate Exorcists as I chip away at Khan's squad


Left flank with Daredevil Rhino driver in ruins. I drop smoke across the board.


He responds by charging me with everything he has and further parking lotting. Termies get out to assault the immo in front of them.
Bikes run around the sides, Khan trying to get behind the LR/Immo parking lot on my far right. In a run of horrible luck (theme for him), his 2 Plasma Cannons blow themselves up in the Tac Squads on Turn 1. Not much else is killed for me.

Turn 2

I push hard again and am now sitting in his deployment zone with most of my sisters.

Canoness charges the termies and keeps them occupied for the next 4 turns. Melta squads shoot out of vehicles and pop the crud out of his vehicles. Khan's squad eats more exorcist. At this point, I have or contest 4 of the 5 objectives.

Turn 3

No more pictures after this. Other fun, on the left side, they pop a rhino and the Bikes with Chaplain charge the girls. 4 dead bikes from Dangerous Terrain for charging into the ruins.

He actually breaks a squad of sisters who run right back to another objective and I regroup them on it.

I wipe him out over a few turns.

By the end of the game, he has about 4 tac marines hiding in ruins and I have 5 objectives, got every bonus point except scorer in Enemy deployment.

Massacre - 23

Game 2


Played vs Mechdar on the Tiki Table - Straight VP

He had:

Bike Council
Foot Council in Serpent
2xFightyGuardians with Flamers in Serpent
1xShooty Guardian with Scatter in Serpent
1x Wraithguard squad with Boneseer
2xPrism
3 WarWalker Squad


This was a fun game and he was a great guy. He was not looking forward to WH apparently.

I get first turn roll, he seizes! I deployed aggressively in a wall of armor at the edge of my zone with the guard on the hill behind and the exorcists in the middle.

Turn 1
He Turbo boosts forward and parking lots us center board. :(



Wraithguard and council move forward as well. Council on bikes fails fortune due to Hood. His shooting does very little despite my close deployment.



His Council eats a lot of fire and he loses probably 4 or 5 of them right off. I push everything forward 6 to make sure I get 4's to get hit and underestimate the power of a foot council multicharge.

Turn 2

The game turns into a short range bloodbath over the next few turns. He shoots and charges me. I charge/shoot him.


Turn 3
A squad/serpent gets into my back lines and walks some squads off the board.



Turn 4
War walkers finally come on on Turn 4.


Big things:
I forget to give my canoness her invulnerable and she eats Wraithcannon. (DOH! this was huge and turned the tide, she would have eaten things)
Celestians (5 girls) tie up a squad of Seer Council in center board for 3 turns.
I don't place enough fire into Prisms until Turn 4 or 5 and they do a fair amount of damage.
I'm unable to kill the final models in his bike council :(

Victory points are added up and I'm ahead, but not by enough. It ends up being a draw. I have 3 quarters though, so it ends up

Draw - 13

In the second round, the highest win was a minor victory from someone who got massacred on their first game. I actually end up being 2nd for Battle Points and go to the first table. Oh fate, how you hate me!


Game 3
I get to play the Daemon player. I have never played Daemons in 40k until this game. I would have rather played the SW Long Fang spam who was in 3rd, but oh well. Such is fate.

I read over his list and completely misassign my target priority for the game. Top off my deployment plan: Castle with hard vehicle shell and squish infantry center and this game was lost before it started. He had about 42 modified KP, I had 49, so not that big a difference.

His list:
4 x Tzeentch Heralds on Chariots
3 x Daemon Princes with Wings and Nurgley stuff
1 x Hounds (like 10)
3 x Fiends (6 each)
1 x Screamers
2 x Bloodletters
3 x Plague Bearers
1 x Horrors with Changeling.




I did not take a lot of pictures on this game. This store was HOT. We were on the second floor of it and there wasn't enough ventilation. Combined with me being a giant puss, I was tired, hot and getting dehydrated. I'm sure that didn't help my game, but mostly it was my tactics.

He wins the roll for first turn and takes it. I castle up in my deployment zone.

In retrospect, I should have split my infantry into two forces and used them as bubble wrap for the 3 exorcists and chimera. If I put 2 Exorcist on one far end of my deploy and 1 exorcist 1 chim on the other with bubble wrap, he would have had to split his forces and slowly eat through my Stubborn Invulnerable while eating fire turn after turn. I also should have reserved all my transports and hoped they didn't come in, keeping Immos out and moving 12 every turn.

He gets his preferred and deploys way out behind cover. Even with bad scatters, I shoot up his hounds and horrors (but changeling survives) and then things go down hill. Over the next 5 turns, he assaults everything and slowly chips away.

Key things from the game:
- Changeling lives. I should have finished off his squad. He forces the vet squad to melta gun x3 and demo charge the canoness who dies instantly from Melta. He also forces an exorcist to blow up another one later. I underestimated how hard it is to roll my leadership and how key he was. I was already losing by the time the Canoness got popped, but she could have tied up the Screamers/DP for turns and turns if she lived, so this sealed my fate.
- Seraphim flub an invulnerable. Seraphim went to charge a unit of Bloodletters. 3 dice, roll over 6 remaining girls. . I still charge and lose everyone (no choice at that point).
- Didn't target screamers. I never really targeted the screamers as much as I should have and they run riot over my back lines.
- Stayed in my transports too long. In most games, I believe in 'He who bails fails', but it was completely opposite here. I should have been out since the beginning pouring fire into his units. I underestimated invulnerable saves. I'm used to sisters eating armor for lunch, but I'm not used to everything being invul/fearless. Because I stayed in, I got stuck a few times with squads that couldn't deploy and were useless for a turn. :(

Here's a late game snapshot of me being massacred:


Overall, he was a great guy and gave me some tips after the game. He was detail oriented, precise and all business during the game. One of those people who you have to make no mistakes against to win.

Combine my inexperience with deployment mistakes and some poor luck and it was over before it started. I played it out and managed to scrape about 1000-1200 VPs off him.

Anyways... I got 1 Battle Point for 3000+ VP over 3 games.

Loss - 1

I ended up 5th or 6th out of 13.
1st - My Turn 3 Opponent - Daemons
2nd - Long Fang / Typhoon Spam SW
3rd - Mechdar (guy who got to sit out first game because of odd players)

Even though he was a great guy, the final game was demoralizing. Most of the time, I can clearly see what I did wrong at the end of the game to get where I was (Game 2, underestimating Fire P and foot council) but the bad thing about game 3 was I had no idea what I could have done to win at the time. (Took me some time to figure it out once I rested and talked it out.)

Combined with the heat and dehydration, I had a rough ride home.

Looking back now, I'm glad I went and had a lot of fun. I would definitely do it again, but would wear cooler clothes and bring a lot more liquids.

Good games, except for the last one. Sounded rough. Normally daemons have a hard time against an all-mech army. Didn't they have a fountain or vending machine for you to buy something to drink?

jy2 wrote:Good games, except for the last one. Sounded rough. Normally daemons have a hard time against an all-mech army. Didn't they have a fountain or vending machine for you to buy something to drink?

Yeah, but he had a very non-traditional daemon army from my understanding.

They had soda for sale but between me getting locked into games and my own innate cheapness, I didn't get any. I brought drinks but housed through them pretty quick.

Daemon armies built properly have little trouble with all mech lists. Mine does extremely well against mech lists, including ones with mulitple land raiders.

Your game 3 is what typically happens when a daemon player faces someone unfamiliar with them, since they are so uncommon. They are definitely ambushers of the unwary and I'm sure you will handle them much better in subsequent games.

Skarboy wrote:Your game 3 is what typically happens when a daemon player faces someone unfamiliar with them, since they are so uncommon. They are definitely ambushers of the unwary and I'm sure you will handle them much better in subsequent games.

It is almost poetic in a way.

But yeah, once burned and all.

Nice report. Good after-action analysis. I agree that with any experience vs. daemons, you would have been able to at least give them a real fight.

gardeth wrote:Daemon armies built properly have little trouble with all mech lists. Mine does extremely well against mech lists, including ones with mulitple land raiders.

Yeah, he definitely had the tools to deal with mech as I found out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:Nice report. Good after-action analysis. I agree that with any experience vs. daemons, you would have been able to at least give them a real fight.

I hope to hit up another tournament and get a rematch against him some time. I found out he got my scatter die too. Worst part was my only scatter was for the demo charge on my poor Canoness. lol

The reasons Daemons tend to struggle against Mech is more the mobility than blowing armor. He had 4 S8 AP 1 shots coming in at BS 5 a turn with his load out, but in the end Daemons are really stuck where they deploy. Some bad luck with the changeling I have never had it work especially on a vehicle (ld 10 for them).

He did mitigate a lot of the daemon weaknesses with those Tzeetch chariots and winged DP (I like them much more than Soulgrinders myself) which is around 12 wounds with 3+/5+ T6 to eat through.

Edit: your thoughts are correct, in general you do not want to get otu of a vehicle but with Daemons it is often worth it to unleash a full fucillade of bolter fire into them. With a typical save of 5+ you can take down a lot of points that way so when you do get charged (eventually) it is hopefully small enough to weather the storm. I find it interesting seeing which AoF I use in different games. I know against Daemons it tends to be SotM while MEQ get DG.

Hey! I was there (Not playing though), i remember liking your army.

It was getting hot in there. It was a strange selection of armies, and the Deamons guy definitely deserved it after what i saw him do to the space wolves. Genius player.

You regularly come down to AW?

That was the first time I played at a store in 7 years. I may make it down there again though if they run something else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

calypso2ts wrote:The reasons Daemons tend to struggle against Mech is more the mobility than blowing armor. He had 4 S8 AP 1 shots coming in at BS 5 a turn with his load out, but in the end Daemons are really stuck where they deploy. Some bad luck with the changeling I have never had it work especially on a vehicle (ld 10 for them).

He did mitigate a lot of the daemon weaknesses with those Tzeetch chariots and winged DP (I like them much more than Soulgrinders myself) which is around 12 wounds with 3+/5+ T6 to eat through.

Edit: your thoughts are correct, in general you do not want to get otu of a vehicle but with Daemons it is often worth it to unleash a full fucillade of bolter fire into them. With a typical save of 5+ you can take down a lot of points that way so when you do get charged (eventually) it is hopefully small enough to weather the storm. I find it interesting seeing which AoF I use in different games. I know against Daemons it tends to be SotM while MEQ get DG.

Heh. I wish I thought of them while I was there.

The heralds didn't do a whole lot. They came in late and failed a lot of pens, but I never even scratched them (i was in hand to hand across the board at that point.)

And I totally agree. SotM isn't half as useful as DG vs MEQ. For instance in my first game, I was DG'ing him like crazy with SoTM reserved for my canoness tarpitting those poor termies.

Well, Wednesdays Fridays and Sundays are good days to be down there for 40k. Usually.