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So after much delaying I decided to put my ‘Ard Boyz experience down on paper (well internet paper). To date I have always managed to qualify for the semis but I always haven’t been able to go (3 hours + is usually my limit). But this year I find out the my FLGS about 10 minutes from my house will once again be hosting the Semis, so the pressure is on.

I decided to run my venom heavy DE list that helped win me a recent tournament in Cleveland, TN (the Maul in the Mall, best tournament name ever). The additional 500 points would come in the form of added wyches, 2 units of beasts, and 2 extra haemonculi.

My List:

Baron

X3 Haemonculus Vb, LG

X2 4 Trueborn x4 blasters
X2 Venom +SC, NS

3 Trueborn x3 blasters
Venom +SC, NS

6 Wracks LG, Acothyst
Raider FF, NS

X2 8 Wyches HG, Hekatrix+ Agoniser
Raider FF, NS, SP

X3 5 Kabalite Warriors Blaster
X3 Venom +SC, NS

3 Beastmasters
5 Khymarae
4 Razorwing

3 Beastmasters
4 Khymarae
4 Razorwing

X3 Ravager FF, NS

So I went with a balance of shooting and CC, in that I have a lot of both. The Haemies ride with the wracks and the wyches (I’ve had a lot of success with the haemie + wrack unit). I planned to use the beast units to both defend my gunline and to disrupt the enemies. The Baron will go as needed.

So turn out was about 18 people, not bad at all, notably there are 3 other DE lists, and none of them are what I would consider soft. Tables have plenty of terrain and a lot of it can provide cover to raiders and venoms.

Game 1

This is the killpoint mission where you give a troop model to your opponent and the traitor is 5 KPs. Nightfighting first turn and pitched battle deployment.

My Opponents (Glenn) list (from memory)

Baron

X2 Haemonculi vb, LG

X3 4 Trueborn x4 blasters
X3 Venom +SC, NS

X2 9 Wyches HG, Hekatrix+ Agoniser
x2 Raider FF, NS

X2 6-8 Wracks, LG, Acothyst
x2 Raider FF, NS

X2 5 Kabalite Warriors Blaster
X2 Venom +SC, NS

X2 6 Reaver Jetbikes x2 blaster

5 Beastmaster
10 Khymarae
6 Razorwings

X3 Ravager FF, NS

Sooo a list that is rather similar to mine and also has alot of nightshields, shooting just got alot more difficult for the bother of us. I need to shut down the bikes and his beastpack while protecting my own. We both have enough KPs on offer to make getting the traitor key. We both put the traitor with a unit of haemonculi. He rolls reroll to wound for combat drugs and I roll +1 str.

Our Baron’s cancel each other out and I win the roll. I opt to deploy first. I deploy centrally with the beasts on the flanks. He splits up his force into two halves and deploys on both extreme flanks. At this point I am feeling MUCH better about this game.
He fails to seize and on to turn 1.

My Turn 1

I shift my entire army to my right, leaving just my beastpack as bait. I place it behind a large cluster of area terrain so that any charging units will have to go through terrain OR risk failing the assault or only getting a few models in. I also hide the baron. My nightfighting rolls aren’t great but I do manage to do A LOT of damage to the beastpack and kill most of one of the bike units, but I do nothing to his vehicles..crap.

Glenn Turn 1

On my left he moves up with his beasts and wracks intent on charging mine, he also moves up with his baron to do the same. On my right he moves up with a couple of venoms to fire on my other beast unit. The rest of his units move to fire on my boats and his full unit of bikes boost onto my left flank. Shooting sees him do only minor damage to my beasts and stunning a ravager and the assault phase sees the wracks fall short due to difficult terrain, the baron makes it in, but only a few of his beasts due. In combat, he does very little damage to me and I tear up his beast unit. His beast pack flees, never to return and the baron stays and gets surrounded (his shadowfield down).

My Turn 2

I move my right beast pack up to charge the venoms that shot at them. I also move up and disembark a trueborn squad and a warrior squad to shoot down his wracks and wyches a safe distance from my lines or to at least bait him out of his raiders if they fail. On the left I send a wyche squad to take care of the bikes. Shooting sees my trueborn and warriors whiff completely, I manage to wreck a wyche raider and immobilize a ravager….yippie (he made 6 flickerfield saves in a row)! In assault my beasts stun one of the venoms they charge, the wyches wipe out the bikes and the beast finish off the baron! Much better.

Glenn Turn 2

He moves his wyches from the wrecked raider towards my victorious beastpack, he also moves his wracks with the traitor to liquefy them. He moves his other wrack squad to deal with my disembarked trueborn and warrior squads and the mobile venom moves away from my beasts. In shooting he manages to do some damage to both beast squads, blow up a ravager and a venom, and the wracks manage to wipe out both of my disembarked squads.. oh well. In CC the wracks and wyches finish off my beastpack but the wyches are stuck in the open >

My turn 3

I move forward my wracks + haemonculus squad to liquefy and assault his wracks, the baron moves up to help. My right unit of wyches move up to assault some disembarked warriors and my beasts move to attack as well. In the shooting phase I manage to blow up 2 raiders and a venom and kill the wrack unit and the traitor. I have enough SC shots afterwards to drop the wyches in the open down two the succubus. In CC I mange to link 3 assaults and wipe out a warrior squad, a venom, a trueborn squad and most of the wrack unit. In return I lose the haemonculus. He takes a couple of fearless wounds and stays.

Glenn Turn 3

He moves the surviving wyche and the remaining unit of wyches to assault my wyche unit on the left. His shooting manages to immobilize 2 venoms and kill a couple of wyches. In assault I lose but hang around. My wracks manage to kill all his wracks, but his haemie holds out.

My turn 4

Mostly clean up now. I turbo my traitor over to his side of the table and shuffle a few things around. Shooting final starts to tell and I wreck a couple. In CC I manage to down a couple more. My wyches hold again (also managing to kill the lone hekatrix).

Glenn Turn 4

Not much to do besides fight the CC. He manages to kill my wyches.

Wrap up. My venoms make short work of his wyches and he has only a few busted vehicles left.
Result Massacre: 26/26

I really feel like I won this one in deployment and the first turn. After he went in after my beastpack I was able to deal with everything he sent at them. Even though I ultimately lost them I earned roughly 12 killpoints from his efforts to kill them (wracks, haemonculus, raider, jetbikes, wyches, baron, beasts, and the traitor). That’s one hell of a trade!


Well they announce the next pairings AND…..its another DE player……grumble


Deployment: Spearhead
Mission: modified objectives (5 objectives, one in center is worth 4, ones in deployment zone worth 1, ones in non-deployment zones worth 2). Night fight turn 6

My opponent’s (David G) List, again from memory:

Vect
Baron
6-9? Incubi
Raider FF
4 Trueborn x4 blasters
Venom +SC
5 Wracks LG
Venom +SC
19 Hellions
9 wyches HG, hekatrix agonizer
raider FF
X4 5 Kabalite Warriors Blaster
X4 Venom +SC
X2 6 Reaver Jetbikes x2 heat lance
X3 ravager FF

I win the roll to go first but I give it to Mr. Steal the Initiative on a 4+. Plus its an objective mission with 2 groups of superfast airplane armies. BUT he has no nightshields, and I’m going to try and abuse that difference!

Deployment.
David deploys pretty forwardly with everything, hes going to come right at me!
I, on the other hand, go for the sneaky cowardly approach and hide in my back corner with everything but the beast packs (they ARE going to get shot) who are forward but behind a big wall. I attach the baron to the larger beastpack.

David Turn 1

David moves 12” forward with everything but the bikes, who boost to either of my flanks. He starts by firing his venoms at my beasts and only manages a few wounds. He then starts with his lances….and realizes all of them are outside 30” range! Alpha strike stolen!

My Turn 1

I move up to, hopefully, deliver a devastating round of fire. My beasts move to deal with the bikes while the baron heads to my right (and a lot of enemy venoms). Shooting sees me shake 1 ravager, shake and immobilize another one, kill about 5 of the hellions, and kill a few bikes on my right flank….thats it….uhoh…. In CC I manage to kill the left bike unit with my beasts and my right unit charges a venom instead of the bikes…because I’m slowed. They don’t even hit the thing.

David Turn 2

David moves to try and make use of his 12” blasters, but he is more timid with the rest of his forces, he has two units of beasts in his lines. The venoms on the right move to shoot the slowed beasts that charged them. The surviving bikes move to heat lance a ravager, and in a surprise (to me) move, his hellions+baron move 12” back. In shooting, he manages to down 2 venoms and a ravager with lance fire. He manages surprisingly little harm on the left beast unit but finally wipes out the unit one the left (but it takes all his venoms, blasters, and splinter rifles to do it).

My Turn 2

My remaining beasts move up to cause some havoc and one of my wyche units moves up and disembarks to multi-charge a ravager and venom. The Baron moves to take out the remaining bikes and everything else gets into position to remove enemy lances. Shooting sees me drop the incubi raider and splinter fire kills them all. I also manage to remove a lance from the immobilized ravager and finally, I wreck vects raider! That’s a load off. In cc, my beasts wreck a venom and remove another lance from the immobilized ravager and stun it, while the wyches shake a venom and wreck the ravager they charged! Not a bad turn.

David Turn 3

Vect+wyches have to move into the open if they are ever going to do anything. The wracks disembark to shoot and assault the beasts. The hellions move up to shoot the beasts as well. The venoms and remaining ravager move to get shots where they can. Shooting sees about half of my beast unit go down (thanks to g-t-g) but my wyches are wiped out. He whiffs against my vehicles. His wracks fall short of the assault due to DT.

My Turn 3

I move a few things around (most notably the baron and the wracks move to threaten his venom wing on my right). In the shooting phase I manage to down his last mobile ravager and shoot the last lance off the immobile one. I also immobilize a troop venom and stun the trueborn one. I also manage to kill all the wyches with vect.

David Turn 4

At this point David realizes he’s out of lances and only has 12” blasters to work with. He disembarks the trueborn to shoot at the wracks raider. He also moves vect back to avoid excess fire. His hellions move up further and his wracks move towards a 2pt objective. In the shooting phase, he wrecks the wracks raider and kills a couple of them. He finally manages to kill the rest of my beasts.

My Turn 4

Baron moves up to deal with the trueborn or a venom. Shooting sees David make a ton of flicker field saves though the wracks venom is dropped, the trueborn dies to the baron.

David Turn 5

He moves his Hellions+Baron onto the center objective while a unit 5 warriors abandon their immobilized venom and head back to his table quarters objective. The wracks get closer to the objective to my left. Shooting sees me make over 15 shadow field saves with the baron .

My turn 5-end of game
I manage to get rid of the last of his venoms but the baron finally drops (he made another 10 or so 2+ invuls before dropping!) I move to cover 2 open objectives and send the wyche raiders (empty and full) to tank shock onto the center and left objectives (covered by the hellions and wracks respectively). In the last shooting phase I manage to kill just enough wracks to force a test and he drops an 11 giving me a massacre instead of a major!

This was a VERY tough fight in which I had to use all of my tricks to get ahead. The beastpacks where MVPs, running interference. And nightshields may have been a game-winner as well. In the end I think it was my ability to remove all his lances AND his over caution with the hellions that won the game for me (I think I could have handled the hellions BUT that would have taken a lot of fire and would have left other parts of his army intact).

I ended with 20/24 on this one.

Game 3
Mission VPS!!!! (with a character you nominate worth double VP)
Deployment: Dawn of War

My opponent this round is Matt R. and his (Yellow) Black Templars. Matt is a fellow Blade n Bolter club member, and built his list with a list like mine in mind….goody.

His list (again from memory)

Emperors Champion
8 Assault Terminators th & SS
7 Assault Terminators (mix of LCs & Th/SS)
Land Raider Crusader with the thrice damned Blessed Hull……
5 Regular Termies w/ CML
9 man crusader squad (EC goes here)
Rhino
X4 5 Man tac squads (melta I think)
X4 TLLC Razorbacks
X2 Land speeder Typhoon
2 Land speeder typhoons

A tough list, but I couldn’t ask for a better mission to face it in, DoW with VPs, yes please.
I win the roll to go first and take it. I put nothing on the table and neither does he. I roll +1 ws for drugs.

My Turn 1

Move on with the big beast unit in the middle with baron attached, another on the left and the rest of my vehicles spread across the line.

Matt Turn 1

Moves on, LR moving up the center aggressively, with the rhino behind. Rhino smokes. The rest of his force comes in behind a half hill that gives him cover, but gives him great LOS for shooting at me, with the only cover for me being a few sandbags on the hill. His Assault termies on foot run forward. He can’t see to shoot me.

My turn 2

I move up some to get shots on the assault squad (since he’s got 48” range everywhere I’m not really paying attention to my moves as much….oops.) Critically, I move my big beast unit to just within range of his LR as I want to bait the big expensive unit OUT of the LR as early as possible. I manage to kill 5 of the termies, immobilize the rhino, and actually stun the LR…whoopie.

Matt Turn 2

Matt moves up the LRC and disgorges its contents into my beast pack. His crusader squad disembarks to shoot at the other beast pack heading their way. And the rest of his shooting is pretty harsh as he manages to down 2 troop venoms and a trueborn venom….ow. In the assault he manages to win combat and the beasts + baron run off the table. Lost about 500 vps that round….ouch.

My Turn 3

I’ve got some ground to make up. I move my left wyche squad up with the remaining beastpack to assault his crusader squad. The rest of my force moves to get shots where they can. I manage to weapon destroy a lone landspeeder, kill 1 from the squadron and stun the other. Crucially I manage to wipe out the termie squad that just munched my beasts…wheeew. My wyches + beasts kills a few marines, but I lose my haemie and a wyche.

Matt Turn 3

Matt moves up the normal termie squad to help his crusader squad in the assault and move the LRC back. His remaining 3 assault terminators move up further. His shooting (somewhat reduced) is as unimpressive as he either misses (yep TLLC missing) or I make my FF save. The termies storm in and whiff terribly and I lose combat but not by much.

My Turn 4

I have a tough decision to make. I could throw the wracks into the termie fight but pfists do bad things to wracks, but theres a lot of VPs tied up in that fight and I needed to win it, so I sent them in. My remaining wyches jump out to play, pin the grenade on the laindraider, while the rest of my army took aim at his fire base. Shooting sees another wrecked landspeeder and a exploded razorback. In CC the wracks help out big time as do the beasts and wyches. I manage to drop the EC with my hekatrix and finish off most of the marines. My razorwings drop 6!! rends on the termies and the wracks throw on 15 wounds (re-roll to wound ftw). After that, only 1 termie remains and he drops my haemie. The wyches get a weapon destroyed result or 2 on the LRC.

Matt Turn 4

Matt moves a few units to get into better firing positions and his 3 assault termies move to assault the wyches that where beating on the LRC (who drives back into my lines). Shooting is again a dismal affair (my FF are rolling hot and his shots are missing A LOT). His termies assault my wyches and break them (still enough left to rally later). In the big assault I finally manage to finish off the last few loyalists (with the wyches taking all the pain tokens, greedy bitches).

My Turn 5

I move my non-fleeing wyches to continue the game of grenade tag with the land raider, the beast move to finish off the immobilized rhino, and the wracks get back into their raider. My shooting is again impressive, with me weapon destroying the last speeder and shaking a razorback. I also manage to kill 2 of the 3 assault termies. In assault I wreck the rhino and do another weapon destroyed to the LRC.

Matt Turn 5

The last Terminator jumps into the LRC who follows the fleeing wyches. His shooting sees a venom wrecked and that’s about it.

We roll for turn 6…and get it

Turns 6 & 7…yep 7

I move in and in manage to pop the rest of the razorbacks and the last speeder. Splinter fire sees 1 squad killed. In turn 6 the wyches immobilized the LRC (but not before it tanks shocks a blaster squad off the board) and on my last turn cover it with grenades and finally wreck it. The wracks move in and managed to cover 2 of the 3 remaining squads with their LG and they manage to kill most of both squads with the survivors fleeing off the table!

So at games end, he has 1 assault terminator and 4 marines left. And I have well over half.
I pick up 22/23

This game started out great for Matt but then his dice just dropped and mine got hot. I like to think that maneuvering into cover and some clever charges helped, but I will take what luck I can when I can get it.

So I finished first overall with 68 battle points.

Looking forward to the semis!

good job Kev! GL at the semis!

Congrats on the 1st place finish. Wow...68 points! Impressive indeed. For those who say DE doesn't scale well over 2K, I say...look at Gardeth's list. When you're not sure what to add, just add more beastpacks. A damn impressive unit indeed. I think cavalry are the future anti-meta unit. Beastpacks, thunderwolf cavalry, fiends of slaanesh, raveners...if you want to succeed against some of the really tough MSU-lists out there, then those are the units to take.

I was curious if you've ever faced a dread/psycannon-spam GK list? And if so, did you have problems with them?

I've faced psycannon spam with just a couple of dreads and tabled them thanks to nightshields (18" psycannons aren't worth much and let me focus all my fire on the dreads).

I haven't faced the x6 psyfleman dread list yet, but if I do I hope its not KPs, and after that I will have to do what I can to eliminate/tie them up (with beasts and wyches most likely).

gardeth wrote:I haven't faced the x6 psyfleman dread list yet, but if I do I hope its not KPs, and after that I will have to do what I can to eliminate/tie them up (with beasts and wyches most likely).

Actually a KP Battle against Dread heavy GK will not be as bad as you think, since they usually have around 18-19 kill points themselves.

Beasts are nice, although I usually stick to just chymerae. Those Beast Packs are cheap and very scary. Thanks to the 4++ save I've had them tear through Terminator Deathstar units with ease.

AchillesFTW wrote:Those Beast Packs are cheap and very scary

The Cheap part is what is scary; they can really bog down an opponent. As someone who plays Deathwing, I groan inside every time I see Beast Packs.

Nice Game, I'll be seeing you at semis (again) but not with my bugs this time... I may have my Tau though... that could be fun. I got 68 as well, I'm hoping for some epic fights around my old stomping ground (MTSU)

Dudes I got 68 too! TN wargamers unite!

Omega_Warlord wrote:Nice Game, I'll be seeing you at semis (again) but not with my bugs this time... I may have my Tau though... that could be fun. I got 68 as well, I'm hoping for some epic fights around my old stomping ground (MTSU)

Look forward to seeing you there! Sure you don't want to bring your Nids? Honestly I will be happy to just not play DE for 2 out of 3 rounds