HO HO HO
I spent the weekend with the other Dakka geeks at the second Platinum Devil tournament in Canterbury, Kent. It was organised by Ketara and Reds8n, and featured a lot of the same faces as last time. Just like before, the tournament was great fun, but we all brought our terrain along, which meant that the entry fee could go on prizes instead of the terrain Ketara had to race to complete at the first one!
This time, the tournament was Escalation-based, with seven games at either 500, 1000 or 1250 points over the weekend. I was originally planning to take my horde Guard army, but there were already five
IG players signed up. In the interests of variety, I planned to take Tau, but hard a really hard time getting the points values to work out suing the Escalation rules - your 500pt army becomes the core of your 1000pt force, but you can't modify any units, etc. In the end I took my Daemons since nobody else was running Daemons, and they work out quite well at all three points values.
500pts
* Keeper of Secrets (Soporific Musk)
* 6 Fiends of Slaanesh (Unholy Might)
* 6 Daemonettes
1000pts
* Keeper of Secrets (Soporific Musk, Unholy Might)
* 3 Fiends of Slaanesh (Unholy Might)
* 12 Daemonettes
1250pts
* 18 Daemonettes
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GAME 1 vs LOVEPUG13'S NURGLE CHAOS MARINES
(500pts - Victory Points)
* 6 Plague Marines (Champion, Plasmagun)
* 6 Plague Marines (Champion, Plasmagun)
* 6 Plague Marines (Champion, Plasmagun)
My first game was against Lovepug13, drafted in at short notice to replace Rinkydink, who had a football injury. We played on my trench terrain. He had a simple Plague Marine list, but admitted that he hadn't had a lot of practice with them. Plague Marines are very expensive, and there was nothing really in his army that could stand up to the Keeper, so it was a very short game, as the Keeper and Fiends leapfrogged from one squad to the next. First blood to the Daemons!
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GAME 2 vs KILLKRAZY'S SNAKE TYRANIDS
(1000pts - Assassination - Kill Points, but Elites and
HQ are worth more)
* Tyranid Prime with Boneswords
* 3 Tyranid Warriors
* 2 Venomthropes
* 2 Hive Guard
* 2 Zoanthropes
* Tervigon
* Lots of Termagants
KillKrazy had a very well thought out Tyranid list with a Tervigon, which allowed him to end his first 500pt game with more models than he started with! I was pretty daunted by his list - I've only ever played Tyranids once, at the last Platinum Devil, and I lost! His army had two things that really helped - the Tervigon's upgrades gave bonuses to all the Termagants (30 of which he spawned during the game!) and the Venomthropes forced dangerous terrain tests and turned everything poisionous. We played Assasination on my other table, the Necromunda/Rocks scenery.
My initial assault of Fiends and a Keeper were beaten off with the loss of lots and lots of Gaunts, but my second Keeper proved much more resilient, killing his Tyranid Prime, the Zoanthropes, the Venomthropes and, with help from the small Fiend squad, the Tyranid Warriors. Since so many of these squads were
HQ or Elite, it really upped my
KP score, and I disengaged and ran away before I got overwhelmed by the numbers! Win to Daemons!
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Lunchtime! And it starts snowing quite heavily in Canterbury, resulting in some chilly wargamers after the walk back from the university canteen!
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GAME 3 vs BEN'S KHORNE CHAOS MARINES
(1000pts - Seize Ground)
* Daemon Prince (Mark of Khorne)
* Chaos Lord (Mark of Khorne, Daemon Weapon, Terminator Armour)
* 8 Berserkers
* 10 Chaos Marines (Missile Launcher)
* Defiler
My third game of the day was against Ben and his Khorne Marines. We played Seize Ground on Killkrazy's amazing Tau outpost terrain, and Ben deployed in a line with the intention of getting the two central objectives. I got the wrong half of my army, and the two Daemonette squads had to hang around getting shot for a turn before support turned up and they could start charging. In the end, the Daemonettes took out the Berserkers with just enough left over to grab two objectives, and the Fiends took out the Daemon Prince and raced onwards to the Chaos Marine squad. The small squad of fiends were initially wiped out by the Lord and Terminators, but the two Keepers managed to mop them up later in the game. Win to Daemons!
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GAME 4 vs KETARA'S PRAETORIAN MECH GUARD
(1250pts - Attrition - Kill Points, but only Troops count, and all Troops are WITHOUT NUMBER!)
*
CCS with Meltaguns in a Chimera
* Veterans in a Chimera
* Veterans in a Chimera
* Veterans in a Chimera
* Vendetta
* 2 Sentinels
* Leman Russ Demolisher
* Leman Russ Executioner
My last game of the day was against Ketara and his Praetorian Mech Guard. It's been a game long coming, since we've played at two other tournaments this year and never faced each other. The mission was Attrition, a
KP game where only Troops count, and all Troops reappear when they are destroyed. Ketara wisely deployed right at the back of the board and waited, taking out one of the Keepers early in the game.
Throughout the first few turns our elites hammered each other, with my Fiends and Keepers being shot to bits while they ran around destroying Tanks and immobilising Chimeras. We were approaching the end
fo the game when I realised that neither of us had actually killed any Troops, and so I took a gamble with a squad of Daemonettes, multi-charging two Chimeras in the hopes of getting 2KP while he could only get one in the next turn. Alas, it didn't work, and the game ended in a draw!
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INTERLUDE! Off to the pub after a hard day's gaming! We all ended the day with a meal in a strange Chinese/Indian restaurant, which turned out to be serving Xmas dinners for work Xmas parties. So Chinese/Indian/Xmas Roast for all, followed by cocktails upstairs. Here's some jolly Xmas geeks, and Ketara looking relieved after ordering a Wild Sex and having his hair fondled by some hairdressers on an Xmas party...
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GAME 5 vs REDS8N'S SLAANESH CHAOS MARINES
(500pts - Victory Points)
* Daemon Prince (Lash)
* Defiler
* 5 Noise Marines (Blastmaster, Sonic Blaster) in a Rhino
My first game of the day was against Reds8n and his Slaanesh Marines, on Panic's Eldar terrain. The wrong half of my army turned up, and the poor sexy daemonettes were lashed into Battlecannon formation, but luckily two survived. This was kind of the turning point, since they went on to hold up the Daemon Prince for a turn, which meant that the Keeper, arriving the turn after, could mostly stay in combat and finish off the
DP, the Defiler and the Noise Marines turn after turn. Win to Daemons!
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GAME 6 vs TITANPRINCEPS' IMPERIAL GUARD
(1250pts - Portals - Objective game, where all objectives allow you to 'jump' to other objectives)
*
CCS with Meltaguns in a Chimera
* 4 Ratlings
* Veteran Squad
* Veteran Squad
* Vendetta
* Vendetta
* Leman Russ
* Leman Russ
* Leman Russ Demolisher
The next game was against TitanPrinceps and his new Guard army. I was quite apprehensive about playing this, because of the high number of vehicles, but the setup was Dawn of War, so at least they weren't all on the table at the start. TitanPrinceps had very good target discipline, relentlessly shooting the Keepers until both of them were dead, only having lost one Vendetta to their claws. The small squad of Fiends managed to take out a Demolisher before being shot to bits, and the bigger squad took out the Vendetta, Chimera and a lot of Guardsmen before being wiped out. However, this carnage left me in a good position, with most of the Guard infantry too far away to get an objective and lots and lots of Daemonettes left on the board. Another win to Daemons
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GAME 7 vs PANIC'S GROT KAN WALL
(1250pts - Bombardment - Seize Ground, but with EXPLOSIONS.)
So, finally in the last game, I faced up against the Kan wall again. I knew I wouldn't be able to beat this army, but we were in a strange position. I had won so many games that I effectively couldn't possibly lose the tournament, and Panic had lost so many that he would almost certainly come bottom, whatever the results of this game. So, for fun, we decided that our three objectives were all in buildings, and destroying the buildings would destroy the objectives. We played on Panic's S6 Canal system, and alloted the big bridges as our 'buildings'.
I deployed everything together and just milled around for a while until his Kan Wall got close enough for an assault, and then charged EVERYTHING. Of course, there were just too many Kans, and my Keepers and Daemonettes were wiped out! In petulance, I decided to destory the final objective standing, forcing a draw, until Reds8n reminded us that Panic could still win by wiping out all my army. The rest of the game turned into a running battle, with my remaining Daemons hiding while the Grots attempted to mop them up. The game ended with a comedy draw.
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RESULT - DAEMONS WIN THE TOURNAMENT! FIRST PLACE! WOO!