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Some buddies and I hit another RTT today, we have been on a tournament rampage lately. This tournament was fun, well organized and had some great prized, including $100 for the winner among other prizes.

I brought the good old Bjorn Wolves.

1850

HQ:
Bjorn
Rune Priest: JotWW, Storm Caller

Elites:
Dreadnought: L.Cannon, H.Flamer

Troops:
Grey Hunters x 5: Flamer
Grey Hunters x 5: Flamer
Grey Hunters x 5: Flamer, Razorback, A.Cannon
Grey Hunters x 5: Melta, Razorback, A.Cannon

Fast:
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon

Heavy:
Long Fangs: Lazroback
Long Fangs: Lazorback
Long Fangs: Razorback

Game 1: Each player picks two of 5 possible objectives (table center, objective markers, getting scoring units into the enemy deployment zone, kill points, kill enemy HQ) and has to tell the enemy one of the chosen objectives but may lie about the other if they want to.
Spearhead deployment.

Opponent: Dark Eldar

HQ:
Lelith
Homunculous x 2: 2 x Scissors hands, 1 x WWP

Elites:
Incubi x 9: Klaivex, demiklaives

Troops:
Wyches x 9: Hekatrix, Agoniser, hydra gauntlets, Raider, flicker fields, night shields
Wyches x 9: Hekatrix, Agoniser, hydra gauntlets, Raider, flicker fields, night shields

Fast:
Beast Master: B.Master x 5, Razorwings x 5, Clawed Fiend x 1, Khymerae x 5
Beast Master: B.Master x 5, Razorwings x 5, Clawed Fiend x 1, Khymerae x 5

Heavy:
Ravager: Night Shields, Flickerfield
Ravager: Night Shields, Flickerfield
Cronos:Spirit Siphon

Bjorn got my first turn with his reroll and then my opponent deployed very poorly, leaving two Raiders in the wide open. He failed to steal the initiative and I gunned both Raiders and their occupants down (both Wych squads and Homunculi with the WWP). It just got ugly from here. He popped his Ravagers out to shoot, and they were subsequently gunned down. Lastly the Inubi with Lelith made a made dash form my lines but were also cut down before they could do any damage. To add insult to injury, both squads of Beastmasters actually made it into combat off of reserves from his table edge but were beaten in combat (one by a squad of Long Fangs) and ran off the board. I asked him after the game why he deployed as he did and he replied that he thought night shileds and flickerfields would keep him safe and allow him to drop his WWP near my lines. But with the firepower my list packs, it was pretty much suicide. But, he was a cool guy and fun to play.

At any rate, that is the way it goes with DE against my list. If they go second and don't hide (which he could have, there was plenty of LoS blocking terrain) they get gunned down, which is exactly what happened.

Game 2: The player with more of 3 designated scoring units in the opponent's deployment zone with no enemy units within 3" by game's end, wins.
Deployment: Spearhead

I pulled my buddy Italiaplaya again for the third tournament in a row! But that was fine by me as he is a good player and all of our games have been super close and fun. We have tied every game so far and I was hoping to finally beat his tough Fatecrusher army.

HQ:
Fateweaver
Bloodthirster

Elites:
Bloodcrushers x 6: Fully diversified
Bloodcrushers x 6: Fully diversified
Fiends x 6: Might

Troops:
Plague Bearers x 7: Instrument
Plague Bearers x 7: Instrument
Plague Bearers x 7

Heavy:
Demon Prince: MoN, Wings, Iron Hide, Aura

The missions was tough for me as I had to go towards my opponent and he only had to drop his Plague Bearers into my deployment zone and then keep them alive and away from my units. He could then wait with his superior assault units for me to come to him and then assault where he wanted. Italiaplaya gave me first turn and I spread out into two forces to try and hook into his deployment zone and split at least part of his force away from Fateweaver. It went downhill for me fast though as Fateweaver went on a rampage. He blew the arm of the Dread, immobilized one Razorback and destroyed another and, worst of all, he killed Bjorn! Doh! Bjron is my best tool to take out a unit of Bloodcrushers but I had to expose his rear armor to shoot at a Plaguebearer unit in my deployment zone and Fateweaver took him out. With he and the other dread dead (taken out by Fiends) I was in deep gak. I had no reliable way of stopping the Crushers, Thirster and Fateweaver. I spent the rest of the game trying to run away form his assault units and get my troops into his deployment zone. It was looking grim as I was unable to kill his crazy tough Plaguebearers (they were making ludicrous saves!) and he was killing my troops off one by one. The game went to turn 7 and in the last turn my Rune Priest managed to JotWW Bloodthirster! He was contesting my last living two Grey Hunters in his deployment zone. The game ended a tie as he had one living Plague Bearer squad in my deployment zone. My army got mauled but some crazy last ditch luck got me the tie. It was funny because the situation was the opposite last time we played with hm getting a tie due to some crazy good luck on his part.

Game 3: Modified Kill Points (Designate 3 units in your enemy's army that are over 100 points. One is worth 3 KP, the other two are worth 2)
Pitched Battle Deployment

Opponent: Frankie's Hero Hammer Wolves

This list cracked me up because we had been brainstorming it the night before the tournament and here he shows up with it!

HQ:
Wolf Lord: T.Wolf, Saga of the Bear, S.Shield, Runic Armor, P.Fist
Wolf Lord: T.Wolf, Saga of the Warrior born, S.Shield, Wolf Claw, Runic Armor
Wolf Lord: T.Wolf, Wolf Claw, S.Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf Tail Talisman
Wolf Lord: T.Wolf, Frost Blade, S.Shield, Runic Armor

Troops:
Grey Hunters x 5: Lazorback, Flamer
Grey Hunters x 5: Lazorback, Flamer

Fast:
T.Wolves x 4: P.Fist, S.Shield x 3

Heavy:
Long Fangs x 6: M.Launcher x 5
Long Fangs x 6: M.Launcher x 5

Bjorn won me first turn with his reroll. This was huge because it meant I had two three level buildings in my deployment zone. T.Wolves can't go up stairs so that meant any units in levels two and three couldn't be assaulted. I deployed my army in both buildings but with two squads of Fangs in one building and one squad in the other. I chose his Saga of the Bear Lord as my primary Target (knowing he would be coming at me) and his fangs as my secondary.

Frankie made a really smart move in deployment, using a building to cut off LoS from a large chunk of my army to his two Long Fang squads but leaving them with no cover from my third squad. It was a big risk as Kraks would kill them with no save, but it allowed him to have local fire superiority if he weathered my first volley. Which he did. My first turn of shooting was terrible, only killing a single Fang and stunning a Razorback. It went downhill from there, fast. He advanced through the storm of my fire taking very little damage. It was a combination of really below average shooting on my part and great wound allocation and saves on his part. He put my krak missiles on his 2+ save lords and my las and plas on his 3++ T.Wolf Calvary. By the time he hit my lines he had not lost as single model from the big unit (although all were wounded). I needed to put lots of wounds on the squad at once to get past the Lords which I couldn't do.

Once he hit my lines with all his bruisers the characters split off from the big pack and started waxing my easy KPs. I just couldn't do any damage to his army. I popped both Razorbacks after three turns of shooting, but the 5 man units that came out took a single casualty after putting about 25 wounds on them combined. His saves were pretty hot all game.

I was hemorrhaging KPs but looked like I might came back when in one turn I killed all but one of the T.Wolf models and started to take out the Long Fangs after moving to get a bead on them, but the game ended turn 5. Frankie got his primary KP target and a secondary, I got my primary and no secondary. gak dice and just smart play on my opponent's part served up one of the only and worst losses I have taken with my Bjorn Wolves, 13 KP to 8.

So, not my best showing going 1-1-1, but a lot of fun. My Wolves took home best painted though, which was cool and earned me some loot.

Another fun tournament! Looking forward to the next event.

Wow your third opponent dumped a huge amount of points into HQs!

haha, it was around 1000pts on just HQ

I've been experimenting with TWC lately and I find them to be a lot of fun. Of course, I don't play "hero-hammer" TWC, but I did run 15 "bloodcrusher" TWC's. Loads of fun (but probably not so for my opponent). Actually, the last time I played them was also at the Alamo against an Eldar player who I believe won their last tournament over there. He was probably at this tournament you just played.

DE just matches up horribly against shooty wolves. I don't know how they can take on long-fang-spam even if they go first. Both times I played them recently with my wolves (1 with new codex and 1 with old), I dominated them. They really have problems with MSU lists.

I'd have a fun time against Italiaplaya's daemons. Though I haven't faced fiends, I have gone against 18 bloodcrushers before. My usual tactic would be to jaws Fateweaver. Then tank shock bloodcrushers to line them up and jaws them as well. Then again, I play triple-Rune Priests with 2 Living Lightnings, 2 Jaws, 1 Hurricane and 1 Tempest.

I don't believe in deathstar units like the "hero-hammer" list. It was a fluke that you lost to him (dice rolls). Well, he did play smartly, but I think your list should be able to handle his army 4 out of 5 times. If I was playing against him, I would probably drop my Rune Priest (in drop pod) on turn 1 and jaws his hammer unit (hopefully all lined-up in his deployment zone). His list would also probably get picked apart by dual-lash. It's a scary list for sure, just like a nob bikers list, but it can be dealt with by a balanced army.

Zonder wrote:Wow your third opponent dumped a huge amount of points into HQs!

Yes...he did. I wonder who gave him that idea.

/point finger at OP

jy2 wrote:I've been experimenting with TWC lately and I find them to be a lot of fun. Of course, I don't play "hero-hammer" TWC, but I did run 15 "bloodcrusher" TWC's. Loads of fun (but probably not so for my opponent). Actually, the last time I played them was also at the Alamo against an Eldar player who I believe won their last tournament over there. He was probably at this tournament you just played.

DE just matches up horribly against shooty wolves. I don't know how they can take on long-fang-spam even if they go first. Both times I played them recently with my wolves (1 with new codex and 1 with old), I dominated them. They really have problems with MSU lists.

I'd have a fun time against Italiaplaya's daemons. Though I haven't faced fiends, I have gone against 18 bloodcrushers before. My usual tactic would be to jaws Fateweaver. Then tank shock bloodcrushers to line them up and jaws them as well. Then again, I play triple-Rune Priests with 2 Living Lightnings, 2 Jaws, 1 Hurricane and 1 Tempest.

I don't believe in deathstar units like the "hero-hammer" list. It was a fluke that you lost to him (dice rolls). Well, he did play smartly, but I think your list should be able to handle his army 4 out of 5 times. If I was playing against him, I would probably drop my Rune Priest (in drop pod) on turn 1 and jaws his hammer unit (hopefully all lined-up in his deployment zone). His list would also probably get picked apart by dual-lash. It's a scary list for sure, just like a nob bikers list, but it can be dealt with by a balanced army.

Elder player that won the last tournament? Usually our gaming group hordes the top spots, and there are no elder players in our group other then reece (who is new). In fact Spineland got 1st with his IG, and i placed 2nd this time around.

I dont think that would do much seeing as jaws needs 5 for the crushers and 6 for everything else. But Im down to play a game whenever though.

You should start showing up to black diamond games tournaments as well.

italiaplaya wrote:
Elder player that won the last tournament? Usually our gaming group hordes the top spots, and there are no elder players in our group other then reece (who is new). In fact Spineland got 1st with his IG, and i placed 2nd this time around.

I dont think that would do much seeing as jaws needs 5 for the crushers and 6 for everything else. But Im down to play a game whenever though.

You should start showing up to black diamond games tournaments as well.

You know Austin? Just got his eldar recently. He usually does well at the Alamo tournaments. I believe he won it at one of the recent tournies (it was 2K), though I am not 100% sure (if he didn't win, then he probably placed high).

I played against against daemons twice with my wolves. Won once when I was able to Jaws the big chicken early, and lost once when I wasn't able to, so it all depends if I'm able to take him out early or not.

I'm not much of a tournament player, but that is only because I work on the weekends. But perhaps if you're free on Thurs, I can get a game going then as I'm usually off on Thurs. Just PM me.

Yeah, I think Frankie should take a Saga of majesty just to make sure he doesn't get tank shocked off the board. Failing two LD10 tests in a row is about 1 in 144 odds. Very unlikely to happen.

That hero hammer unit is only really weak against PBS, Manticores (or any strength 10 attacks that can put several wounds down at a time), and massed flak firepower. Dark Eldar Venom Spam and Eldar flak fire with Doom would have good odds against it.

@jy2
Yeah, I was using Jaws constantly in both games against the Heor Hammer Wolves and Fatecrusher demons. I killed 2 or 3 crushers and Bloodthirster which was awesome. Against the Wolves I got the Saga of the Bear Lord and a T-Wolf, so i did really well. I always try and set it up to hit multiple models, but it really does just take luck.

If I played him again I think I could take the list, but if he went first and there were plenty of LoS blocking terrain, that is a really tough match-up. Not many lists can stop the Hero-Hammer wolves, they are pretty tough. Having tons of Rune Priests would help a lot though as you could JotWW them down to a manageable size.

If you live near Brentwood and want to get a game in at the GW there, you can hit me up, I live right next to it and am usually free on Thursday evenings for a game.

Congratz to Spireland for winning the tournament and snagging that $100!

jy2 wrote:

italiaplaya wrote:
Elder player that won the last tournament? Usually our gaming group hordes the top spots, and there are no elder players in our group other then reece (who is new). In fact Spineland got 1st with his IG, and i placed 2nd this time around.

I dont think that would do much seeing as jaws needs 5 for the crushers and 6 for everything else. But Im down to play a game whenever though.

You should start showing up to black diamond games tournaments as well.

You know Austin? Just got his eldar recently. He usually does well at the Alamo tournaments. I believe he won it at one of the recent tournies (it was 2K), though I am not 100% sure (if he didn't win, then he probably placed high).

I played against against daemons twice with my wolves. Won once when I was able to Jaws the big chicken early, and lost once when I wasn't able to, so it all depends if I'm able to take him out early or not.

I'm not much of a tournament player, but that is only because I work on the weekends. But perhaps if you're free on Thurs, I can get a game going then as I'm usually off on Thurs. Just PM me.

Yes I know Austin. And most of us know him as a cheater (which is besides the point really, as hes a nice guy). The 2000pt thing your talking about was not a tournament, it was a month long league that started you out at 2000pt but would slowly go down in the points the more units you lost every game. He actually normally never comes out to tournaments anymore revolving 40k. He sticks to Fantasy.

Its more or less like that all the time with my list, once fateweaver goes down haha. However I can proudly say that I'm undefeated with my Daemons in Tournament play, Im sure that wont last to long. I've only been playing this army since summer. But Ive got to say Reece has gotten the closest to beating my daemons, damn near killed everything haha.

I'll probably be there Wednesday, and Thursday painting my daemons. I need to finish them by late Jan. haha. But ya just show up and I'll more then likely be there. The other space wolves player with the TWC should be as well.

I thought I was going to get you last time! The first game if it weren't for Marbo and the Callidus going ape gak you would have beaten me. Last game I only tied you because I got lucky as hell, you beat the crap out of my army. I hope next time one of us wins so we don't keep tying! And it would be even cooler if the person that won was me, Haha!

That space wolf list your third opponent used, is my latest project. I haven't tested it, but in theory it wrecks house. I suggest he gives each lord a talisman, that's 4 5+'s against psychic powers that target the unit. And, as you said give one of them saga of majesty. I also suggest giving each lord a puppy or 2, helps with multi charging and more importantly absorbing S10 shooting.

Yeah, we were brainstorming the exact same options. It is a brutal list, Goatboy won the Adepticon Championships with a list that was similar. With saga of majesty it doesn't matter if you take a morale test from the puppies getting smoked.

Most armies quite simply have not hope of stopping this monstrosity. Even dual Nob Bikers would get the uber pwnage, although it would be a awesome battle: Clash of the Titans!

Really, PBS is the big weakness. Kill a few puppies, make the ld2 and good bye. With the prevalence of IG in tournaments that is a serious drawback, but still, that list will steamroll most armies.

That and armies that pour our flak firepower. My Footdar would have good odds against this because of the sheer amount of shots combine with doom (although as you said, taking WTT will help mitigate that). You need to pour on the wounds to really hope to torrent out the squad. Massed str6, massed bolters, FRFSRF blob squads would be the best bet. For most armies meta'd for Mech, they will be suffering against this list.

If all goes well I should have this list running for my next GT. The four talismans are really what give you a chance against PBS. I'm worried about dealing with land raider/battlewagon death stars. I mean with that much S 10 I can crack them open but then getting counter charged by the entire army seems like a bad idea.

I don't believe in these type of deathstar armies. While they will clean house on 75% of the armies out there, they will have trouble against a good, balanced armies or MSU lists.

My solution to these type of units? A couple of dreads to lock them up and some screening units to delay them.

@Reecius:

How did Bjorn and your dread do against the TWC opponent?

@Yermon
I will be very interested to see how you do with it. And yes, that is a good point, having 4, 5+ against psychic powers gives you damn good odds to shut down powers that can ruin your day.

@jy2
The dread killed one of them in HtH who was off on his own, but then a lucky shot from a long fang took him out.

Bjorn was doing OK but only because my opponent rolled all ones on the damage table against him. Strength 10 is nasty. The 3++ means normal dreads probably won't kill them and the units with saga of the bear will obliterate dreads pretty easily. The dread will most likely only get 2 attacks (the T.Wolves will probably get the charge off as they are faster) and that means that if the rending attacks don't take the dread down, the dread will hit once on average and have a 1/3 chance to kill a single wolf so long as they wound. Then the fist/hammer on the wolves swings and the dread's probably toast.

Against MSU once the Wolf deathstar gets to you, they split up into 5 units and each one goes after a single target.

They aren't unbeatable by any means, and I know I can beat that list with my Bjorn wolves, especially in an objective mission where I can focus on killing his two scoring units. But in Kill Points, that is a pretty tough match up for my MSU list.

A screening unit might work if it were big enough and stubborn. Like a 50 man blob squad with a commissar would do the trick nicely. Fearless units would get chewn up with fearless saves too quickly. The wolves put out a gak ton of attacks.

ya TWC with a fist have like what, 4 or 5 str 10 attacks base. Dreads have lots of trouble with them