Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

After playing 40K for 17 years, but only competing in small local tournaments, I finally had the time, money, army and skill to go to a larger event, and the Bugeater GT in Omaha proved to be the perfect opportunity. It was an 1850 point event with 64 spots, following the NOVA-style of winners vs winners until one overall winner was determined with a 6-0 record. I practiced quite a bit with various armies in local tournaments to get ready, going from Stelek's GK assault-cannon razor spam list to HB razorbacks with psycannon-toting troops, eventually settling on this:

OM Inq Power Armor, Hammer, 2 servo skulls

5 purifiers, 2x psycannon, hammer
razorback with psybolts

5 purifiers, 2x psycannon, hammer
razorback with psybolts

5 strike squad, psycannon, MC NFW
assault cannon razorback with psybolts

5 strike squad, psycannon, MC NFW
assault cannon razorback with psybolts

5 strike squad, psycannon, MC NFW
assault cannon razorback with psybolts

5 strike squad, psycannon, MC NFW
assault cannon razorback with psybolts

5 strike squad, psycannon, MC NFW
assault cannon razorback with psybolts

psyfleman dread
psyfleman dread
psyfleman dread

Playtesting showed land raiders were fairly common (for some reason...I've never liked them), and just troop-carried psycannons weren't enough to reliably deal with them. Throwing in a few (5) assault cannon razorbacks proved very effective at stopping them as needed. I had found myself in melee more often than I wanted, often with SW and BA troops, and found that spending a few extra points to give the Inq a hammer and armor made him give a nice extra punch in melee. The servo skulls were just because I had a few points, and I thought they might help potentially. Never proved necessary.

I arrived Friday night (tournament started Saturday) to check out the tables and terrain. At first I was stunned....the tables were all VERY open, with just a low hill and forest template or two. I had heard that some tournaments couldn't keep up with terrain demands for a lot of tables, and I was terrified that my transports would get slaughtered early. Then, I got to the other half of the room and saw tables like this:







...and realized I had walked in on the fantasy side of the room, and things would be ok. Overall, most of the tables seemed pretty densely covered with terrain, mostly small little things scattered around to hinder vehicles, and almost all the tables had some large, LOS-blocking piece of terrain in the middle of the board. Overall, good for me, considering I had brought a lot of TL-assault razorbacks and wanted to get in close.

My first game was against a BA player. Mission had table quarters for primary objective, KP for secondary (have to win by 3 or more), and objectives as tertiary. His army was something I hadn't faced much in the past, but I thought I had the firepower to shut it down at range and pick it apart, especially when I won the roll-off and chose to go first.



I can't find my copy of the list, but it was (basically):
Mephiston
Death Company and DC Dread in Stormraven
Termy Assault squad in Stormraven with Sang Priest
2 assault squads in TL LC razorbacks
5 scouts with missile launcher

I planned to charge forward, grab the center of the board, and wagon corral up for defense while spraying shots everywhere. I had a razorback and dread on each flank to ensure I had angles for shots against his stormravens, but he chose to keep them in reserve and fly on.



Instead, I destroyed his razorbacks and slowly whittled away at his troops/scouts. Mephiston had been hiding behind ruins (I hadn't seen him there) and jumped out, slowly taking out my separated dreads and units. His stormravens came in very slowly (turns 3 and 5, maybe), which kind of helped, but I didn't protect my dreads well enough and Mephiston killed all three, making it tough to shoot the stormravens down.



Eventually, Mephiston perilled twice, took a wound jumping into terrain (or two) and I was able to shoot him down. The game boiled down to his ability to stop me from holding two quarters, which he could only do with his last stormraven. I fired 6 psycannon shots at it and they all missed, so he was able to tie me (I think) on quarters, win on KP and tie me on objectives.

I hindsight, I should have been able to win if I had just been better about following my gameplan and kept my whole army bunched up. Mephiston couldn't have rushed into the middle of my army and survived the shooting/counter assault, which would have protected my units and helped me win. Oh well, tough to have my dreams of winning the whole thing shot down right away, but it was a good fight that went down to the last die-roll (I had three quarters to his one until he moved that stormraven), so at least it was close.




My second match was against a SW player with a very similar army to a local player I play, so I was pretty well prepared. He had something like:

Rune Priest (in rhino with GH)
Battle Leader in terminator armor in Land Raider
Lord on Thunderwolf, hammed, shield, couple of wolves

10 GH with stuff in rhino, wolfguard
10 GH with stuff in rhino, wolfguard
14(?) GH in Land Raider

4ish thunderwolf guys, mixed weapons
5 scouts, melta, wolfguard with PF

5 long fangs, 3 ML and 1 LC
5 long fangs, 3 ML and 1 LC
Land Raider Crusader

Terrain was fairly open, except for the large hill-thing in the center of the board. Setup was spearhead, with primary KPs, secondary 4 objectives and tertiary as table quarters. Can't remember who won the roll off, or how it affected things.




Ultimately, I was able to stagger his advance instead of letting his assaulty-elements hit simultaneously. My first round of shooting stunned his LRC (no extra armor) so I dumped the rest of my shooting into his thunderwolves and blew up one of his rhinos. That forced him to walk, so I could prioritize shooting between thunderwolves first, guys that got out of the LRC next, then the guys that hopped out of the rhino third. My dreads and a few HB razorbacks fired from cover and traded shots with his long fangs, slowly whittling them down. Eventually, his RP and GH in the last remaining rhino dumped out into the middle of the board, but I was again able to shoot them up.



Don't have any more photos than the ones above, but I won all 25 battle points by winning all three objectives...I might have tabled him at the end, actually, but if not, it was close. We talked a bit afterwards, and we agreed stopping the LRC so early hurt him a lot. I told him I wasn't a fan of LRs, but if you're going to invest all the points in one, you might as well pay the little extra for extra armor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Third game was against a Chaos Marine army. I hate to admit it, but I wasn't too worried...poor chaos marines are still handicapped with their codex. Still, the army looked good, gotta give him credit for bringing them, and it was pretty well put together from what I've seen in the past, but that was before GKs, so I had a feeling the plague marines wouldn't be as troublesome now that I had so many force/power weapons (I had used DE in the past). His army was:

Demon Prince, WIngs, MoS, Lash
Demon Prince, WIngs, MoS, Lash
10 CSM with champ, x2 melta, power weapon
rhino
8 Berzerkers, champ with fist, icon
rhino
7 plague marines x2 meltaguns, icon
rhino
7 plague marines x2 plasmaguns, icon
rhino
2 oblits
2 oblits
6 terminators with various weapons, combi-meltas

Setup was Dawn of War, mission was Primary was objectives, secondary was table quarters, tertiary was KP. He setup and went first, while I drove everything on first turn.



Game went pretty much as expected, unfortunately for my opponent. Warp Quake forced his terminators to drop in too far to harm me immediately, and they scattered to the far right table edge, allowing me to gun them down. The terrain channeled his rhinos, and allowed me to shoot them and shut down their mobility. There was a bit of a scrum on the middle of the table on the right side, with him charging, me counter charging in a squad, and each of us adding squads per turn. Thankfully, I had the numbers and power weapons to win the fight.




My opponent played as best as he could, but poor dice rolls combined with mismatched lists put him at a terrible disadvantage, and I tabled him, winning all 25 battle points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, with two large wins I was starting to work my way up the tables again, which was good. I was a little bummed after losing my first, so it was nice to get a couple of wins.

My next opponent was a BT player, which was a nice change of pace. Still power armor, but at least something I rarely faced. List was:

Marshal with 20 person crusader squad (10 initiates, 10 neophytes)
Emperor's Champ with accept any challenge (with sword bretheren, I think)
Reclusiarch with a different 20 person crusader squad (10 initiates, 10 neophytes)

Dreadnaught with DCCW, heavy flamer, assault cannon
10 sword bretheren with various upgrades, furious charge, in LRC with MM, extra armor

2nd, empty LRC with MM, extra armor

Setup was pitched battle, with primary quarters, secondary objectives (three spread across the table midline) and tertiary KP. We talked afterwards about why he took the second LRC, as it seemed a little odd. He said he wanted extra fire support, razorbacks were too expensive in his codex, preds were expensive and always under performed, so why not another LRC to drive up the middle and blast stuff? Seemed to work, and he felt it was nice and fluffy.





From past experience, I knew the LRCs would take a lot of concentrated fire from my rending stuff to stop, so I tried to stay close together to ensure I could hit them hard.

The game progressed very oddly...the BT was afraid of my shooting, so he didn't charge around the middle pyramid, but he and I played peekaboo, shooting at each other's vehicles while he tried to hide his squads. I did swing around to the left edge to engage one of his large squads and got a bit close, allowing him to assault me, but it pulled the squad forward enough that the rest of my army could shoot at them and eventually shoot them completely to death by the game's end.




I immobilized the dread and blew off its cannon, so I didn't need to worry about it much. It took a while, but I blew up both land raiders, but I was concerned about being able to grab the central objective with his guys so close...then I realized the mission primary was quarters, and he only had the sword bretheren and 1 large squad left hiding behind the pyramid, so I bombshelled away from the center and claimed all 4 quarters, mostly with more points than he could compete with as I had only lost a few units (razorback or two, 1 squad, the Inq...and that's it).




He tried to advance, and I had the last turn, which allowed me to shoot away the rest of his army except the large squad hiding behind the pyramid. I ended up with all 25 battle points. This was the strangest game of the tournament, and my brain hurt a lot after it...the summary doesn't do it justice for the amount of planning ahead and course of action consideration I had to go through every turn, trying to figure out how to handle what seemed to be an assaulty based army that, instead, hunkered in the middle and traded shots with me.

That was the end of the first day, the longest day of 40K I'd ever played. Everything ran very smoothly, all my opponents were friendly and knowledgeable, so I was loving it. You always read about the large tournament horror stories and "that guy", but it was nothing but positive. I'll write about day two soon!

that BT list was odd and really didn't see any way he could win unless you rolled poorly lol. Great games so far!

So, day two had me up on table 7 out of 32. Not sure if most large tournaments have the tables in order or not, but it was fun to see myself slowly climbing the standings and getting to the higher-level tables. My first opponent of the day was an IG player:



I don't have a printout, but his list was something like:

Company Command Squad (plain)

Marbo
7-8 psykers
chimera
5 stormtroopers with 2 melta
chimera

Platoon HQ (plain?)
chimera
2x squads with autocannon, grenade launcher
Vet squad, 3 melta
chimera
Vet squad, 3 melta, demo (in valk)

Valk
Vendetta
Vendetta

Demolisher with HBs
LR with HBs
LR with LC, HB sponsons

My son plays a fairly similar IG list, and I practiced with him a lot, so I had a pretty good idea of what to do...in fact, dealing with his 3 vendettas is what finally convinced me to give up on the ALL razorback spam list and take the 3 psyfleman dreads. Still, IG is a good, solid army, and this list had a few things my son doesn't run (demo vets, LRs, psykers) so I was on alert. I wanted to kill the vendettas quickly, so he couldn't crack open my transports and then blast the exposed troops.

Table was fairly congested, which was good for me ( I felt):


Setup was Dawn of War, mission was primary KP, secondary quarters and tertiary objectives (5, one in the center, one in the center of each quarter). Don't remember who won the roll-off, but I think it was him. He deployed his company HQ and blob-squad in a 3-story ruin on my right, while I drove everything on.



Looking at his deployment, I figured I'd push on my left and commit less to my right. KP is my army's weakest mission, so I felt I could at least tie up his right flank with a couple units while I tried to overrun his left. His vendetta's shooting was pretty lackluster, so he wasn't able to crack any vehicles open...that gave his tanks and Marbo (who arrived turn 2) no good targets.




His outflanking stormtrooper arrived on my left flank, but he didn't like how things were developing (figured they'd be a free pair of KPs for me) so he drove them in by his vendettas on his far right corner. Things pretty much went according to my plan from there. My dreads were able to suppress and eventually kill his flyers in a few turns, which allowed them to focus on his chimeras and tanks later in the game. I did successfully drive up the left, but my right underperformed my expectations, killing very little, but at least they managed to tie up his flank for several turns.




My left flank only lost 5 KP though, I think (3 razorbacks, a squad and the Inq) and the rest fell back to claim my quarter and an objective, so it was sufficient. On my left and center, I managed to blast most of his units and press a couple of squads far enough forward to assault his center, wiping out another squad or two. At the very end, one lone strike squad justicar assault 3 stormtroopers....he killed to of them, but the sgt killed him back. That was enough to tie us on KPs, but I won quarters (3 to 1) and objectives (2-1).



He had this left:
Company HQ
Blob Squad
Psykers
chimera
Demolisher
LR
LR
Stormtrooper

I had lost
5 razorbacks
2 squads
1 inq

So, not a total victory like the last few, but strong enough to get 18 out of 25 points, so I figured I'd be moving up. Indeed, I found myself on table 2 for the last round...not quite my (unrealistic) dream of playing in the finals match in my first major event, but still pretty sobering and proud accomplishment for me. Of course, that meant I'd probably be up against someone VERY good, so I was pretty nervous.

Final round after the break.

My final opponent was an Eldar player named Marc Tomlinson...a terrible draw for me, as I haven't really played against Eldar for years, and a quick google search shows he's successfully played in several large tournaments. I figure it'll be an uphill battle for me, but that's good, as you can't improve without playing better players. His list was:

Eldrad
Yriel

4 Fire Dragons, Exarch (tank hunters, crack shot, pike)
Falcon (holo-field, stones, shuriken cannon)
4 Fire Dragons, Exarch (tank hunters, crack shot, pike)
Falcon (holo-field, stones, shuriken cannon)
4 harlequins (2 with kisses)
death jester
shadowseer
troupe master

6 dire avengers
exarch (bladestorm, 2 catapults)
Wave serpent (stones, TL Scatter laser)
3 Guardian Jetbikes (1 cannon)
10 guardians
Warlock (embolden, spear)
Scatter Laser
5 rangers

3 walkers, all 2x scatter laser

Mission was spearhead setup, with primary objectives (3, which we rolled off to place), secondary KP, tertiary was quarters. The table looked pretty good to me, with a large ruin in the table center, which I hoped would allow me to get close and overwhelm his troops with my small arms fire. In fact, looking at the lists, I felt I might have an advantage in the mission, if I could eliminate his few troops and keep a couple of mine alive.




We setup, and I was further encouraged...my lead left razorback was already on one objectives, and the other was straight ahead in the open, which I figured would be good for me. The final objective was on the other side of the large, center ruins. Gameplan was to try to hold onto those while targeting his troops first and his skimmers second (to prevent last turn contesting and such.



I successfully stole the initiative, which further boosted my confidence, as I hoped to kill some stuff and disrupt his gameplan. I wiped out his jetbikes and killed a couple guardians, but only managed to shake his falcon.

After that, the game was a slow attrition downhill for me. I quickly realized his stuff would be much more difficult to kill than I had first assumed (either through poor luck or whatever, his falcons were nigh impossible to kill), and though I killed the wave serpent early on, his avengers kept going to ground in the ruins, making it tough to kill them. I also lost a unit per turn to the torrent of guided walker fire, and by the time my remaining dreads decided to engage them, they were fortuned in the ruins, making stopping them ineffective.



In the end, I'm losing horribly on KP and quarters, but I've got my near objective. I plow a razorback through the ruins to contest the far side, along with a lone trooper, while my Inq leaves the crater from his vehicles (that Yriel and the harlies assaulted, exploded, and broke from the previous turn) to make a Hail Mary assault attempt at the remaining Dire Avengers. My opponent has 2 mobile falcons (1 holding the rangers) and a couple guardians with Elrad near the rightmost objective, so I'm still pretty much screwed...in fact, I figured that I was and basically all but conceded after my top of turn five or six (whatever it was) as we wouldn't have the time for another round.




My Inq manages to get around the fleeing harlies and Yriel, reaching the avengers, but doesn't kill/break them, and 3 are left. On his turn, he walkers try to explode my razorback, hoping to kill the GK next to it so the ranger-toting falcon can grab the objective, but they can't, and instead they contest, along with the other falcon on my closest objective.

Eldrad fortunes himself and assaults my Inq while his guardians move over and claim the objective, and that's game. He's got all three criteria for a 25-0 blowout...except uber-Inq has other plans. Eldrad wounds him twice, but the avengers fail to harm him, so he survives with 3 Str 6 power weapon attacks. I'm tempted to try and squish Eldrad, but with a rerollable ++3, that's not looking good. Instead, I swing at the avengers and kill all three! Eldrad then fails his leadership check and bombs his initiative check, getting swept by the Inq. The Inq consolidates 4" and contests the final objective! Coupled with keeping Yriel and the harlies running by being the only model within 6", he accounted for 4 KPs AND tied the primary objective for me.



I still lost horribly on KPs (10-7, I think) and quarters (3-1), but it was a good game and I learned a lot. Looking back, I think I could have done a lot better if I had practiced against Eldar a bit more, as my target prioritization was a bit off, and I didn't fully appreciate how elements of his army would interact with each other and me.

So, I ended up 4-2 and something like 11th out of 64 in battle points. All my opponents were great, the venue was outstanding, and the tournament was run very well. I couldn't have asked for a better first major tournament and I'm already trying to ensure I can go again next year!

Really nice tables the GT had.

Your list is pretty solid, but imo its cheesey and OP, but hey its a GT so power to ya.

The lists you played against were very solid, I was impressed by the diversity of lists you played against.

BA/Wolves/CSM/BT/IG/Eldar

Wolves/CSM/BT were your strongest games.

The IG game surprised me how you split up your army instead of ignoring the right flank.

BA game turbo boosting ravens are hard to drop.

I really have no idea how that Eldar player did so well. In my opinion his list is a very very sub-par list. I dont see how an Eldar list with 3 vehicles can compete at 1850, especially when it doesnt have the tools of good foot dar list.

The Fire Dragons will kill 1-2 things, after they get out they die.
Eldrad/Yriel/Harlequins. IMO thats a terrible unit, as you can shoot it off the board pretty easily (even with the 2d6 range shenanigans).

His DAVU/Guardians/Rangers/Jetbikes all cant do any damage. DAVU can kill mabe 1-2 guys a turn, but die in the open. Guardians can kill 1-2 mabe. GJB loose 1 model and bail off the board, and can mabe kill 1 marine a turn.

After that you have the guided walkers (which are a great unit). With the amount of str6 and str8 shooting you have it doesnt matter if they are fortuned or not, just shoot them off the board.

Turn 1) Shoot dreds into falcons, and youll damage them. move your entire army 12" up, pop smoke, and get all your units out in a way to avoid multi assaults, or inbetween your tanks to avoid assaults at all.
Turn 2) Shoot every psycannon/storm bolter into Units in the open/Tanks
Turn 3) Repeat turn 2 until Eldar are tabled.


Overall really cool Batreps and nice job doing well.

As an eldar player though Im honestly shocked at how a sub-par eldar list won against an optimized GK list. Im aware the eldar player was probaby good, but regardless the amount of shots GK has they can table a list like that in a few turns.

Well stelek definitely knows how to max kps in this list. He knows his stuff, but that's a lot of short range fire that will be gunned down by heavier shooting lists such as space wolve or las plas spam.

Defeatmyarmy wrote:Well stelek definitely knows how to max kps in this list. He knows his stuff, but that's a lot of short range fire that will be gunned down by heavier shooting lists such as space wolve or las plas spam.

That's part of the reason I switched from his pure razorback list to something with a few dreads for fire support. With the tables as full of terrain as they were, though, I think the all razorback list might still have had a chance, as they'd get cover saves and lots of blindspots to advance in.

Smitty0305 wrote:
The lists you played against were very solid, I was impressed by the diversity of lists you played against.

Yeah, I figured the tournament would be mostly GK and SW, with a light smattering of BA and IG. While mostly true, there certainly was a decent amount of variety, and overall GKs didn't overwhelm in numbers like I assumed they would. SWs may have been the most numerous.

Smitty0305 wrote:Wolves/CSM/BT were your strongest games.

Probably because those armies builds (in general) are fairly common, so my list was built with them in mind. Some long-range fire support, some rhinos with troops driving forward, and a "rock" of a major threat in a land raider/thunderwolves. Target prioritization to de-mech, suppress, sacrifice a squad or two as needed, then counter assault overwhelmingly.

Smitty0305 wrote:The IG game surprised me how you split up your army instead of ignoring the right flank.

Not sure why I did that...maybe because I hoped my purifier razorback would survive long enough to get near the blob squad and assault? The left opening was congested enough, so I didn't want a massive traffic jam trying to get through the small gap in the terrain?

Smitty0305 wrote:BA game turbo boosting ravens are hard to drop.

Meh, it wouldn't have been so bad if I had protected my dreads properly. I took the dreads mostly too deal with vendettas and other ranged threats, and they do just fine there...AV12, even with a cover save, isn't a real problem. I just let Mephiston run around a little to freely, sniping off my assets.

Smitty0305 wrote:I really have no idea how that Eldar player did so well. In my opinion his list is a very very sub-par list. I dont see how an Eldar list with 3 vehicles can compete at 1850, especially when it doesnt have the tools of good foot dar list.

The Fire Dragons will kill 1-2 things, after they get out they die.
Eldrad/Yriel/Harlequins. IMO thats a terrible unit, as you can shoot it off the board pretty easily (even with the 2d6 range shenanigans).

His DAVU/Guardians/Rangers/Jetbikes all cant do any damage. DAVU can kill mabe 1-2 guys a turn, but die in the open. Guardians can kill 1-2 mabe. GJB loose 1 model and bail off the board, and can mabe kill 1 marine a turn.

After that you have the guided walkers (which are a great unit). With the amount of str6 and str8 shooting you have it doesnt matter if they are fortuned or not, just shoot them off the board.

Turn 1) Shoot dreds into falcons, and youll damage them. move your entire army 12" up, pop smoke, and get all your units out in a way to avoid multi assaults, or inbetween your tanks to avoid assaults at all.
Turn 2) Shoot every psycannon/storm bolter into Units in the open/Tanks
Turn 3) Repeat turn 2 until Eldar are tabled.

Actually, I thought the same thing at first....two special characters, only a couple of vehicles? Maybe this won't be so bad! The few turns I shot the falcons with the dread, I accomplished very little (shaken/stunned). A was good with the fire dragons, too...I let them jump out and shot at my little razorback in exchange for killing them and getting shots at the falcons, but it didn't go as well as I had hoped. I'm usually a fairly passive, reactive player, avoiding the enemy's advances while shooting, then counter-attacking and pushing forward to win. This army (or the original all razorback spam) required a more aggressive, board-center control which I think it more effective and I wanted to practice/improve. Ironically, the game I did that best was probably my first game, which I lost, but in this game I was too passive and defensive, hoping to plink my enemy's troops at range while holding my objectives. I think you're right...an aggressive push, unloading all troops to provide additional fire the second turn, might have been the better approach.

Grimaldi wrote:

Defeatmyarmy wrote:Well stelek definitely knows how to max kps in this list. He knows his stuff, but that's a lot of short range fire that will be gunned down by heavier shooting lists such as space wolve or las plas spam.

That's part of the reason I switched from his pure razorback list to something with a few dreads for fire support. With the tables as full of terrain as they were, though, I think the all razorback list might still have had a chance, as they'd get cover saves and lots of blindspots to advance in.

Smitty0305 wrote:
The lists you played against were very solid, I was impressed by the diversity of lists you played against.

Yeah, I figured the tournament would be mostly GK and SW, with a light smattering of BA and IG. While mostly true, there certainly was a decent amount of variety, and overall GKs didn't overwhelm in numbers like I assumed they would. SWs may have been the most numerous.

Smitty0305 wrote:Wolves/CSM/BT were your strongest games.

Probably because those armies builds (in general) are fairly common, so my list was built with them in mind. Some long-range fire support, some rhinos with troops driving forward, and a "rock" of a major threat in a land raider/thunderwolves. Target prioritization to de-mech, suppress, sacrifice a squad or two as needed, then counter assault overwhelmingly.

Smitty0305 wrote:The IG game surprised me how you split up your army instead of ignoring the right flank.

Not sure why I did that...maybe because I hoped my purifier razorback would survive long enough to get near the blob squad and assault? The left opening was congested enough, so I didn't want a massive traffic jam trying to get through the small gap in the terrain?

Smitty0305 wrote:BA game turbo boosting ravens are hard to drop.

Meh, it wouldn't have been so bad if I had protected my dreads properly. I took the dreads mostly too deal with vendettas and other ranged threats, and they do just fine there...AV12, even with a cover save, isn't a real problem. I just let Mephiston run around a little to freely, sniping off my assets.

Smitty0305 wrote:I really have no idea how that Eldar player did so well. In my opinion his list is a very very sub-par list. I dont see how an Eldar list with 3 vehicles can compete at 1850, especially when it doesnt have the tools of good foot dar list.

The Fire Dragons will kill 1-2 things, after they get out they die.
Eldrad/Yriel/Harlequins. IMO thats a terrible unit, as you can shoot it off the board pretty easily (even with the 2d6 range shenanigans).

His DAVU/Guardians/Rangers/Jetbikes all cant do any damage. DAVU can kill mabe 1-2 guys a turn, but die in the open. Guardians can kill 1-2 mabe. GJB loose 1 model and bail off the board, and can mabe kill 1 marine a turn.

After that you have the guided walkers (which are a great unit). With the amount of str6 and str8 shooting you have it doesnt matter if they are fortuned or not, just shoot them off the board.

Turn 1) Shoot dreds into falcons, and youll damage them. move your entire army 12" up, pop smoke, and get all your units out in a way to avoid multi assaults, or inbetween your tanks to avoid assaults at all.
Turn 2) Shoot every psycannon/storm bolter into Units in the open/Tanks
Turn 3) Repeat turn 2 until Eldar are tabled.

Actually, I thought the same thing at first....two special characters, only a couple of vehicles? Maybe this won't be so bad! The few turns I shot the falcons with the dread, I accomplished very little (shaken/stunned). A was good with the fire dragons, too...I let them jump out and shot at my little razorback in exchange for killing them and getting shots at the falcons, but it didn't go as well as I had hoped. I'm usually a fairly passive, reactive player, avoiding the enemy's advances while shooting, then counter-attacking and pushing forward to win. This army (or the original all razorback spam) required a more aggressive, board-center control which I think it more effective and I wanted to practice/improve. Ironically, the game I did that best was probably my first game, which I lost, but in this game I was too passive and defensive, hoping to plink my enemy's troops at range while holding my objectives. I think you're right...an aggressive push, unloading all troops to provide additional fire the second turn, might have been the better approach.

you ever think about adding a 10 man interceptor squad or a NDK for offensive pressure?

Stelek loves MSU and has some cool takes but I really don't like that list he posted. I think yours is better. Yea you can first turn push to get within 24" but as you learned, BA, SW and a a whole list of other armies will whip you silly for advancing on them like that.

Awesome reports man! thanks for sharing and you did really well!

Actually, I did consider both the NDK and interceptor squads, but the NDKs compete with the dreads, which I like, and the interceptors are so darned expensive...not like the rest of my stuff was cheap, points-wise, but I'd have to lose a lot of other stuff to fit a large interceptor squad in.

Great job for not playing for so long. Your list is very similar to Nick's (yermom's) list, only he takes normal psybacks instead of assbacks and 3 units of purifiers. Very nice terrain as well.

No, don't go for the NDK or interceptors. IMO, they don't go well with this type of list. The name of the game here is maximum spammed-firepower. If you want to run the NDK or interceptors, I think you need to redesign your list for them.

jy2 wrote:Great job for not playing for so long. Your list is very similar to Nick's (yermom's) list, only he takes normal psybacks instead of assbacks and 3 units of purifiers. Very nice terrain as well.

It's funny you mention that, as the weekend before I had EXACTLY that at a local preparatory tournament...all psybacks and one additional purifier squad. The numerous land raiders proved too difficult to stop with the psycannons, so I switched to the above list. The extra shots and rending helped a bit more against thunderwolves and marine squads that got too close, as well as against the occasional transport or Leman Russ that got too close.

I was worried about losing the purifier squad, as I found them to be a handy counter-assault element. Giving the Inq power armor and a hammer helped a little, as did better tactics and setup of sacrificial units and counter assaults.

Smitty0305 wrote:
I really have no idea how that Eldar player did so well. In my opinion his list is a very very sub-par list. I dont see how an Eldar list with 3 vehicles can compete at 1850, especially when it doesnt have the tools of good foot dar list.

The Fire Dragons will kill 1-2 things, after they get out they die.
Eldrad/Yriel/Harlequins. IMO thats a terrible unit, as you can shoot it off the board pretty easily (even with the 2d6 range shenanigans).

His DAVU/Guardians/Rangers/Jetbikes all cant do any damage. DAVU can kill mabe 1-2 guys a turn, but die in the open. Guardians can kill 1-2 mabe. GJB loose 1 model and bail off the board, and can mabe kill 1 marine a turn.

After that you have the guided walkers (which are a great unit). With the amount of str6 and str8 shooting you have it doesnt matter if they are fortuned or not, just shoot them off the board.

Turn 1) Shoot dreds into falcons, and youll damage them. move your entire army 12" up, pop smoke, and get all your units out in a way to avoid multi assaults, or inbetween your tanks to avoid assaults at all.
Turn 2) Shoot every psycannon/storm bolter into Units in the open/Tanks
Turn 3) Repeat turn 2 until Eldar are tabled.

This was actually my initial reaction to seeing this list as well. However when you see a list like this at a top table in a large-ish tournament, red flags should start going off in your head. The person behind the list probably knows their shozbot.

Now, that's not to say the list is good. As you've pointed out it's actually pretty darn fragile if your opponent has any idea what his target priority should be. With Eldar representation so low at tournaments anymore, and with only two "real" builds acceptable, target priority is usually not an issue for the Eldar opponents. This list has a couple of uncommon choices (Falcons/Deathjester/Yriel) that, while not completely obscure, do add an element of surprise to the army. Couple this with general "FU GK " that is Runes of Warding, and the Eldar player gets a pretty decent advantage in tournament meta. Falcons aren't all that hard to counter if you know what to expect, but Grimaldi didn't find out until it was too late that you could pump several turns worth of fire into them without killing them. This allowed the real threat, the WW's, to tear him apart.

Is it a gimmicky army? Sure. But it was played by a sound tactician who had a game plan to go with the little surprises, and took advantage of the errors that the uncommon units caused. So, yea, it's a pretty bad list. But credit where credit's due: the surprising gimmicks worked. Afterall, he did have to win several other games before he got to table 2, so Grimaldi wasn't the only one taken by surprise.

For more on the subject of unusual/anti-meta Eldar lists see Recius, and some scrub named Smitty

Great report.

That is some really nice terrain, the tower in the IG game looks amazing.

The eldar list is really weird, firedragons in Falcons?? But as Dash2021 says, when you see a weird list at the top tables, beware

Illumini wrote:Great report.

That is some really nice terrain, the tower in the IG game looks amazing.

The eldar list is really weird, firedragons in Falcons?? But as Dash2021 says, when you see a weird list at the top tables, beware

Bingo. Smitty is right, the list is bad by typical standards... But look at some of the adepticon lists, etc. If something works for someone, no matter how much it goes against the grain, it can and will win. That's why reeces footdar works, he knows how to play it, and few are prepared for it.

As has been said many times, a good general can win with off the wall lists. These lists are made with the meta as a whole in mind, while the meta has prepped mainly for mechspam. Spamming units doesn't create a competative list, putting your own twist and learning to play oit does. Everyone knows what razorspam does, or venomspam, etc. But when someone comes across something new it messes up their plans (good example: jy2s mto cronz, everyone knows to killthe ccbs and wraiths, but toss in doomscythes and most opponents heads explode)

Glad you had a good time at the Bugeater! It is an awesome event. I have been to it both years now and Tim definately runs a good one.

The Eldar player is very good. If I'm not mistaken, he Beat Hulksmash earlier. If he didn't, it was very close, as I remember Brad takling about it.

How do you think you wold have done vs the winner, and his Orks?

One great thing about the BGT, the armies are a little more diverse than other areas. IE orks won at 6-0 and Daemons took the Sweapsteaks (Ren man). SW were most numerous and GK second but they were not a huge majority. Only 11 and 8 players if I remember correctly. Several other armies had good showings and there was nids there too!

Hope to see you there next year and maybe we will get to play. I was the Crimson Fist player that took Best Sportsman.

Well, how can I really judge my army against the ork player's? I'm certainly on the bandwagon that orks have severe problems, but the guy won 6 games in a row against increasingly good opponents, so that counts for a lot.

I can certainly say I would have liked to play him...just like the Eldar player, I play orks very rarely, so I don't get much practice and experience against them. Playing against a top level Ork player would be even better, just to see what the army is really capable of.

Nice batreps Grim, all good reads. Thank you for posting them!

Congrats on doing so well at the event, 4-2 is very solid.

I would agree that the Marcs list is unorthodox. I Actually had the pleasure of facing him in round 3 of the nova invitational with my daemons, he is an extremely sound tactician and knows his army perfectly. I would agree with you/others that your slight lack of experience facing eldar was your downfall, but in all honesty the majority of tournament players would look at his list and be slightly mystified. The list he played at the invitational was very much akin to that one, and is it surprisingly resilient and can have some very strong counter charge. Our game went down to the final d6 of the game, if I rolled a 4+ i won, if I didn't, he would win. We tied on almost everything, but I rolled a 5. Thus giving me the victory lol. Quite a snapshot ending. But once again, nice job in the tourney and good luck in the rest of them!