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Howdy all, went to the colonial and figured I would let everyone know how it went. I will update with pics as the night wears on.

First round was Kill Points versus a nice guy with a 3 battlewagon ork list.
30 grots
20 shoota orks
10 nobs with all the upgrades
9 flash gits with 2 s6 shots each, and a pain boy
2 closed top battlewagons
1 open topped battlewagon with a cannon for the flash gits
Snikrot in a min unit of Kommandos
Big Mek with flamer and KFF
PK boss

I was running my same Deathwing list, with:
Belial (THSS)
5 units of termies, 4 with THSS, one with Chainfist, a THSS has the Cyclone in each squad, and 1 squad has the banner and apoth upgrades from belial.
2 Land Speeder Typhoons with MM
6 Bikes, 2 meltas with Pfist, MM attack bike

The mission was kill points, where you get a bonus for killing all the enemy HQs, their most expensive unit, and at least 6 kill points.

My opponent goes first, and I am in no rush, as he actually has less kill points than me. So I full reserve, and dont even come on the board until turn 2.

My opponent uses his free time to set up in a ring in the center of the board, so that all his wagon's rears face each other. Grots form a screen around the wagons to keep my deepstrikes back.

So starting on turn 2, I come on with everything and begin to pelt the side armor of all his wagons with missile fire. To keep the report short, suffice it to say I kill none of them until turn 5. It was pretty pathetic.

I drop termies pretty much all together, to keep his Nobs honest, as he cant take a counter charge from a THSS squad without losing combat by big numbers. Only belial's squad breaks this rule, but they are pretty awesome versus orks with feel no pain--he doesnt want to charge them unless half dead from flash git shooting.

Snikrot comes in on turn 3 sadly, letting him get right behind my 2 speeders that came on turn 2. Snikrot eventually kills both speeder units, though by killing the second speeder with an assault he closed the distance to a THSS termie unit, that charges and wipes him out.

Meanwhile, the 3 other THSS squads create a half circle around the grots, letting me charge them on turn 3, wiping them out. I use a large ruin in the center of the table to hide any damaged THSS termie units his flash gits damage, saving their kill points.

Turn 4 nothing happens other than me killing Snikrot and snikrot killing the speeder, as described, and his turn 5 he continues to keep all his units tucked safely into their battlewagons save the flash gits, who had their wagon shaken, so they got out to shoot. I send bikes into them to lock them in place so they cant run away.

My turn 5, the 2v2 kill point stalemate finally breaks, and after 4 rounds of shooting I finally kill the flash git and 20 boy battlewagons. In addition, a termie unit was just in charge range of the Flash git squad that disembarked, so with instant death that squad breaks after not rolling snake eyes on their boss pole. This makes the KP count 6 me and 2 him.

We roll for the game to end, and it does, with me getting only 1 bonus point for 6 KP.

This was a close fought game, despite him having a poor matchup. I just couldnt kill those wagons, and he played it safe since his wagons were still around. He could have sent his nob squad into Belial's unit for bonus points, but with the score at 1v1 on turn 3's end, and 2v2 on turn 4's end, I imagine he was hoping for more time to shoot with flash gits and for his Wagons to continue to make 4+ KFF saves.

My initial Deepstrike and run rolls, where I scatter one squad away, one behind the pad, and one where I actually wanted it. Belial shot, the bikes begin their trek over, and the speeders move 6 each to fire all 3 weapons.
After turn 3, where snikrot comes into one speeder and immobs it and the other one moves away, termies move to engage snikrot, and anther termie unit charges the grots. I got my final termie unit in, who support the other 3 termies incase of nobs, though they scatter back in the corner.

Another angle of the above.

The flashgits get out of their shaken ride, shoota boys do the same.

I assault the flash gits with the bikes to hold them there, termies will charge them next turn after exploding 2 wagons. The boys were out of charge range, so can get back in a wagon.

So after beating the Orks, I get matched up with what can only be described as my Kryptonite--Dameon Green. For whatever reason, my Deathwing lose to his Khan Bikes, despite my best efforts. The first time we played, I underestimated his ability to roll hits with his thunderfire cannons--I teleported termies near his line, shot 2 cyclones that he saved, and then died to a man to thunderfires that seem to roll more hits than scatters.

The second time we played, I learned to run after teleporting near him, losing shots but preventing the 20 some wounds he was bound to deal with each of his 3 thunderfires to clumped termies. I deployed my bikes, assuming his meager firepower would not kill all of them since some of his bikes were in reserve and I was spread out... well that didnt work either. He killed all the bikes, and both speeders hiding in the far corner for good measure.

So this game, with its 4 objectives placed in deployment zones, I was taking all this experience with me. Run after deepstrike, reserve the secondary forces, close the distance with his firebase and hobble his firepower.

His list was
Khan with Moondrakken
3 rifleman dreads
3 thunderfire cannons
1 land speeder typhoon with bolter
2 land speeder storms with bolters
2 meltabomb ccw scout squads
2 bike squads with fists, 2 melta, and multimelta

My 2 objectives were on my bottom left, his were on my top right.

He castled in the top right with his objectives, and outflanked 1 bike unit, though had khan stay on the board.

I reserved everything.

My turn 1, Belial scatters 11 or so back, and both other termie units also have large scatters away from him. So much for turn 2 assaults, heh. Belial runs a measly 1 inch, so he can get 4 models with a blast. Thats ok, I have feel no pain I figure, I was more upset that with the scatter and run I was still stuck in terrain.

No shooting from me of course as my three termies ran on turn 1 after their deepstrike. At least I am closer than if I started on the board, and denied him 1 turn of shooting, and my 2 non-feel no pain termie units had decent run rolls so are spread out.

On to Dameon's turn 2. His bikes come in, and furthermore get the side with Belial, which stinks for me as I hoped they would be out of the fight for a bit--only his 2 bike units have weapons that penetrate the termies armor saves/feel no pain after all.

He oddly positions his outflanking bikes and scouts not in a position 13 inches away to shoot me and deny charges, but point blank range to assault me! Very curious, but I am not complaining, its his funeral! After all, 75% of my job is to get into assault.

On to shooting, his first tfire scores 6 wounds on belials unit, all of which are saved. Then, out of no where, his second tfire rolls 4 hit symbols, and with 16 dice causes 16 wounds. Absurdly above average, compounded by my run roll of 1 inch causing 4 hits per template, but I am still looking at 2+ followed by FnP. However, belial rolls a 1 on 3 dice, and with 2 and 3 dice each 4 of my termies roll a 1. Sucks, 5 failed 2+ Saves is below average on 16 dice. Then I drop 5 out of 5 failed FnP rolls... and suddenly Belial is down to 1 termie. His bike squad shoots, and meltas kill the final termie on a failed storm shield, and belial takes another wound to bolters. A rifleman then kills belial... So wow.

But, thats ok, because I have a bike squad and 2 scout squads in charge range of 2 termie units. Except his 2 dreads, 1 tfire, bike, scouts and speeders completely kill one termie squad, and kill a guy from the 3rd termie squad.

So, basicly, the worst case senario versus Dameon, AGAIN, 3 games going now.

In my turn, I try and salvage something by sending my 4 remaining termies into his 2 scout and bike unit. A win here will save the game if I can scatter his troops and leave him with 1 bike squad... but of course that doesnt happen. I spend the rest of the game with my 2 termie squads and bikes huddled on my objectives when they come in from reserves, but it doesnt stop him from contesting with a bike squad that is brought down to 1 model in close combat, giving him a score of 2 objectives to none.

Starting turn 2 I was a broken man in this game. My termies just laid down and died. Statistically, if he fired his entire army at Belials squad, and then charged in with his bike squad, not only would the termies survive the shooting phase, they might win combat as well.

Instead, it took only a third of his fire power to kill the entire unit to a man without even needing close combat. Whats more, he went on to kill another 6 termies. If the dice were even a little average, the game would have been completely reversed... on the bottom of my turn 2, with 3 termie units charging his 4 troop units that were placed right in front of me, I would have gained the win right there. I still could have pulled it out if my 4 man termie squad beat his scouts and bike unit. They have 31 attacks at s4 init 4, causing ~15 hits and 8 wounds, killing about 1 termie. He got 2, and I didnt kill nearly anything despite hitting scouts on 3+ and wounding on 2+ with no save. Had I done a more realistic 5 wounds to his scouts with 1-2 dead termie to show for it, he would be needing LD 5-6 checks on his units.

Anyway, it was an interesting game at least, despite my spirit being crushed before turn 3 even started.
Top of turn 2. His bikes that outflanked put themselves point blank next to Belials squad (belial is hidden by the pillar stuck in terrain). In the second pic you can see him moving his bikes towards the 10 termies in terrain, which is followed by 2 speeders with disembarked scouts.



Here is the end of turn 3. As you can see, Belial is dead, the bikes then went to block the board edge to prevent my bikes from contributing. All 10 termies in the center are dead, and only 1 scout is gone to show for it. I deepstruck and spread out to try and hold my 2 objectives in desperation.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
So with 1 win and 1 loss, I move on to round 3 versus a local player Werner running necrons. I tell him up front that Gold Squad, Belials squad that got mowed down last game, is due to go on a rampage, and will thus be unstoppable thanks to karma.

He runs
Immotek
Overlord with MSS, Orb and scythe
several crypteks including 1 with veil, 2 with crucible, 1 with solar pulse
4 5 man troop units, 3 immortals and 1 warrior IIRC
2x3 scarabs
1x8 scarabs
2x3 tomb spyders
Pyreshard/Writhing Worldscape ctan

Mission is 4 objectives, we place 3 in my left upper corner and 1 in my right bottom corner. The mission has a twist in that 1 unit without outflank instead gains outflank and MUST outflank, and one unit without deepstrike gains deepstrike and MUST deepstrike. He chooses to outflank with his teleporting squad and deepstrike with his regular squad.

I outflank a termie squad and I must deepstrike my bikes, as they are all that I have without deepstrike already.

I start with one termie unit on my single objective, with 3 to deepstrike and 1 to outflank. The speeders start with the idea that he will most likely not be able to see them with night fighting. In his turn, lightning immobs and stuns one speeder. He also hits the other speeder with tremor, making it in difficult terrain.

My turn, I drop 2 termie units down, belial and a friend. I run to close the distance, as with no real vees my cyclones deal almost no real damage to him. I immob my other speeder thanks to tremor.



In his turn, he begins blasting down belials squad and red squad. Belial losses 2 models, and red loses 3. My home objective squad lose 1. His outflankers arrive and begin to advance to the lower left objective. His deepstrikers harrass my home objective unit, but nightfight did prevent some shots.



My outflanking termies come in, and kill his outflanking squad. My bikes combat squad when they deepstrike, 1 mishaps and dies, the others land ok. My 2 man red termie squad holds up his big scarab unit, but eventually dies to them. My last deepstriking termie squad drops in near his deepstriking squad, and runs to close the distance.

His shooting pings off of Belials squad, dropping a few but not enough. Immotek and the overlord try and assault Belials unit, but the overlord is stuck in the back, preventing the necessary scythe and MSS from swinging the combat. His squad shoots my beige termies, but does not cause enough damage to wipe them. Spyders all die eventually to gold squad in the combat as well, as like I said Gold squad was due for some dice karma. Belial had seperated to wipe out the scarabs that killed the red termie squad.



At the end, Beige squad killed his deepstriking unit for bonus points, my outflankers killed his outflankers for bonus points, and I had 3 objectives for a final bonus point. Here werner could have went to contest one of my 3 objectives with the ctan, to prevent that bonus point. It couldnt have helped him win the game, though, as no matter what else happened I still had my home base and he had no means to stop it with his 1 hiding troop remaining, so we called it there and I got my first (and only) massacre points at the event.

My 4th game, on day 2, saw me pitted against Eric H's necrons that won the last tourney we were at. The mission was Kill Points with pitched battle deployment. He made a few changes, for the better I think, though I feel there is still room to tune his list.

2 overlords with scythes (nothing else)on barges
4 lance teks with 2 pulses
1 veil tek
1 tremor/crucible tek
2x5 warriors (with 2 lances each)
1x5 immortals (with veil)
1x5 immortals (with tremor)
2x6 wraiths, 3 coils and a pistol
~8 scarabs
3 spyders
2 annihilation barges

So I am going first, and Eric makes a big misplay that should cost him the game. I had combat squadded my bikes on a wide front, meaning I can get first turn charges if he deployed as close as 6 inches further than his own board edge. He deployed all his troops all the way up He fails to seize, and I assault both his 2 warrior lance units with my multimelta bike and 3 man bike squad, and his wraith unit in the center with 3 bikes with a melta and fist. This also lets me drop 3 units of termies right in his face, plus my speeders will be less than 24 inches away giving me 3 shots per. Thats 13 s8 shots from termies, speeders and bikes to instant kill wraiths with, plus a fist charge for 3 more. I kill 2 wraiths with shooting and none with the fist... I also lost 2 bikes against the wraiths, though the bikes versus his warriors fair better.

So in his turn, he has 10 immotals, 2 anni-barges, and 2 ccbs. With this smallish firepower, he kills a speeder, kills 3 termies from one squad, and kills 3 termies from another squad... kinda above average, though belials squad is ok. He then charges my beige squad with his 6 man wraith unit and my silver squad with scarabs. I break and run down one of his warrior squads on my right with the attack bike, though the other squad holds, and his wraiths kill my fist biker.

End of my turn 1.


His middle of turn 1 shooting phase.


So again my termies fall down with below average saves, but it should be ok. Belial detaches to kill the 1 scarab squad, depleted after charging my silver squad. Gold squad is 1.5 inches away from his 6 man wraith unit after my shooting kills 1. With a good difficult terrain roll, I can multiassault the wraiths and the troop unit in combat with the bikes. Instead, I roll double 1's... So my bikes hold. The attack bike that was free from his warrior squad does charge an immortal squad though, and I get 5 termies that use the attack bikes homer to support him next turn



Well, with gold squad failing the charge, his wraiths charge them for the bonus attack. His spyders, 4 man wraith unit, and last free immortal squad shoot and assault the newly arrived termie unit, killing 1 before the assault. The 1 CCB stun my remaining speeder, and the other, along with the anni barges try to kill some of belials squad.

In combat, the wraiths on belials squad is in my favor, though it takes several rounds of hammers pounding on them before they finally die... in my turn 4.

The 4 wraiths, 3 spyders, and 5 immortals kill all 4 of my termies in combat without me even getting a chance to swing, which is a huge letdown. I should have won that combat, as the wraiths deal about 6 wounds and 1 rend, the spyders deal about 4 wounds, and the immortals 2.5 wounds. With wound allocation tricks, the armor ignoring wounds almost all go on one model, leaving the other 3 termies to just make 3 armor saves each... still all 4 die without even an attack.

I drop my last termie unit, and they do the same exact thing in my turn 3, killing them all before I swing, although this time his Anni barges shot them as well, meaning I had less than 4 termies.

As I said, in my turn 4 Belial finally broke out, and stood next to the still stalled bikes versus warrior combat. In his 4, his immortals, spyders, and wraiths charged my attack bike and killed it.

In turn 5, I assault his warriors with belials squad, killing them, but a cryptek gets up costing me the kill point. His turn he simply shoots belials unit a bit.

We go to 6, but now eric has a massive lead. Belial assaults an anni barge, and in 2 rounds stuns it 2 times and immobs it. The termies get damaged some more in his turn, and Belial dies to the lance cryptek who stood up after his unit died. The game ends here, in a total defeat for me.

I actually only get 1 stinking kill point, while eric gains all but 1 of mine. I went from assaulting his frail units turn 1 with 3 potential follow up assaults with termies on turn 2, to getting hammered with only 1 kill to show for it. Like the game versus Dameon, had the dice been any kind of average and there would be no comming back from the turn 2 assault by termies. Instead, he killed 2 whole termie units in a turn with almost no shooting to speak of, silenced my speeders at the same time, and then I failed my follow up charge with snake eyes.

Eric was a great sport though, and ever since he was my own personal judge for a few games at the invitational last year it has been a blast seeing him at events. I think that this is probably the last time he will let the bikes assault his frail yet shooty troops on turn 1, despite the outcome of the game not really showing how bad that mistake was.

As an aside, the final game was versus another local player and friend of mine, Rich, with his sisters of battle.

This game doesnt really get a full bat rep, as it was kind of a silly game for us. There was 1 objective in the center of the table, and the side with the most models within 5 inches at the end of the game wins. Vees of any kind besides walkers count as 5.

So with my 26 terminators, 7 bikes, and 2 speeders, I have 43 models. Rich, with his 5 rhinos, 2 immolators, 3 exercists, 30 battle sisters, 15 dominions, 7 death cult, and 2 HQs, has 104 models, AND he can tank shock me out of 5 inches. So in order to win, I would need to kill 62 of his models while losing nothing.

I gave it my all, reserved everything, and deepstruck all I had in the center of the table. From his turn 3 on it was like playing Duck Hunt for him... I had to go to the center to have a chance, and his entire army was waiting for me. Termies would pop up, and bolters would knock them down. End result was a tabling.

Normally my termies could use their firepower to silence the exos and pick off transports while sitting on distant objectives. That is a much harder game for him, as he has to watch the edges for outflanking bikes, but with termies arriving from anywhere I am going to get side armor or rear armor on something, while staying outside of bolter range. Here, with 1 objective and scoring based on models, none of those plans would work.

Thus my final record was 2 wins and 3 losses. I feel that my first 2 losses I was really robbed of, as both my opponents put their units right out in front of termies, but in both cases their shooting simply wiped units out for no losses. That is the main weakness of deathwing, in that while they are tough they are not forgiving to any kind of bad saves... they truely earn their name as 'unforgiven' heh.

I still contend, every time I lose with this army, that a Paladin GK list would not have lost. 5 out of 5 failed saves is really bad, but with 10 diverse paladins you are still packing 10 models. With my squads locked at 5 models each, it is easy to pick off the lead squad, aka the only one in charge range, and once I lose 3 termies the squad is almost useless. With Paladins, however, the large squad gives you positional options, the extra wound gives you bad dice protection, and we dont need to talk about all the extra shooting and close combat they get.

I still contend, every time I lose with this army, that a Paladin GK list would not have lost. 5 out of 5 failed saves is really bad, but with 10 diverse paladins you are still packing 10 models. With my squads locked at 5 models each, it is easy to pick off the lead squad, aka the only one in charge range, and once I lose 3 termies the squad is almost useless. With Paladins, however, the large squad gives you positional options, the extra wound gives you bad dice protection, and we dont need to talk about all the extra shooting and close combat they get.

Keep in mind your buddies here are helping you out. As the saying goes: "Friends don't let friends play Grey Knights".

nice set of reports. I think the dice were definately not with you on the necron game and bikers. Just needs a few ones to really mess up terminators. Personally I think necrons are turning out to be the new cheese. You can still blow up pallies with melta /lascannon pretty easily but just about nothing stops the damn RP EL as well as the torrent of fire you can dump with tesla. The immotek/scarabs/wraiths also do a damn fine number for assault/counter charge plus there's very little you can do about countering other than just random dice effects. Lance crypetks are really survivable and have messed up alot of kill point games for me too.

Keep in mind your buddies here are helping you out. As the saying goes: "Friends don't let friends play Grey Knights"

Yeah Everliving, I have been sticking to my guns about not running my GK in tournies, but I did break down and play them versus Yermom after losing one too many times to his GK... I believe his response was something like "Do you feel like I do right now when I play my GK against you?"

As for Necrons, I believe they are definately good, but I doubt they are better than GK overall Sudojoe. Instead, I think necrons have better meta elements, as some armies simply can not kill scarabs faster than they are produced, and you still see a lot of pure mech armies with little close combat. This will change in time when people adjust their lists to the crons.

Hey D, from the reading of it, I agree the Paladins vs your army doesn't help you pull ahead. The early assault ability really helps you out. That last scenario, was just bad luck. There were alot of armies in that room you'd have had a better match up against. But the king of the hill scenario is killer.

I have nothing bad to say about running GK. I look at them as a tool in the tool box. People want to run them, great. However, with that typically will come the GK stereotype. I am not one to give players flak for what they chose to play at a GT. As far as i'm concerned, you bought a ticket to something, how you chose to utilize that ticket is something others cannot dictate. I do think your army takes more skill to play, and with that may come more satisfication as a player.

Thanks for the BR!

Njpc, its true I do love my early assault ability of my deathwing assault, but the stronger shooting of the paladin based list pretty much makes that a wash, with the difference being that paladins threaten within 12/24, and deathwing within 12/48 but with 1/4th the shots.

However, my main point with deathwing versus a paladin list I would run is that paladins can roll 4 1's for no reduction in models, while if deathwing roll 4 1's, its all over. With such a small, elite model army a buffer for bad luck goes a LONG way. I cringe any time my deathwing get matched up versus a list like Luke's DE, with venoms all over. With Paladins, I have a 10 wound buffer--not much but very handy.

Thanks for the feedback though guys! Sorry I tangent off with GK so much... Yermom spanked my Deathwing pretty good at the last event in the final match for 1st with his GK, which is probably why I had them on the mind. With a bit better luck versus Eric and Dameon when they placed their models in t2 assault range, my deathwing would not have went 2w and 3L... maybe... so its kinda a moot point.

I watched the stream of you playing Space Wolf Hero, I enjoyed that.

Tough luck, really interesting armies you played against.

One thing I dont like about ur list is the lack of terminators. If you took out the Speeders you could have another group of terminators, honstly IMO you need more models on the board, but thats just my opinion.

Space wolf hero?

As for not having enough terminators, I think 5 is the max. DA termies are not spammable with a 215 starting cost. 5 works because you get to drop 3 units down turn 1 if you dwa. Honestly if you could take bigger squads maybe then I would run more, but as it is I feel I have too many termies most of the time--if 25 is not enough to win in assault, 30 wont change much. I would much rather have more shooting versus all the fast transports around.

Tough break this time. This just wasn't your tournament.

In a head-to-head fight, Draigowing probably has the advantage over deathwing. However, in a tournament environment, that is not necessarily the case. Draigowing is much starved for scoring units, whereas deathwing usually have at least 5 scoring units that are tough to kill. Also, with 5 separate units, they can cover more area usually. I think both have equal chances for victory in a tournament setting.

If anything you are inspiring me to actually play my Dark Angels. Orks broke my mold, and now it always feels odd playing with what looks like a handful of models on the board. I have half the army done, but was always looking at it more for fun to play against friends per their request. It really is a thinking man's army which I commend you and DA players for who use primarily DW / RW. It was nice getting some advice at the Colonial, looking forward to any future gaming.