[DCM]
Tilter at Windmills
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Feast of Blades qualifier, August 4th.
I fielded:
Reclusiarch
priest with lightning claw
Furioso with searchlight, talons
10 Death Company, TH, Fist
10 jump marines, 2 meltas, fist
9 assault marines with melta, power sword, meltabombs
in Rhino with dozer, searchlight
Stormraven with MM, AC, ExA, SL, Locator Beacon
Stormraven with MM, AC, ExA, SL
+
Farseer Mannah'nin with Fortune, Runes of Warding
9 Harlequins with kisses, Shadowseer
10 Guardian Defenders with Scatter Laser
10 Guardian Defenders with Scatter Laser
Feast of Blades prelim scenarios are on their website, if you want full details. Basically each had a primary mission, for which you could earn 11, 10, or 8 points (massacre, major, minor win) depending on how thoroughly you executed it, or 5 each if Drawn, a secondary objective worth another 7, 5 or 3 (major, minor, Draw), five individual bonus points available for various secondary objectives, and a 5pt bonus for completing at least five turns.
Battlegrounds, as usual, ran a good event. This one was much more sparsely-attended than usual, apparently due in part to a couple of carloads of people cancelling at the last minute. We wound up with 14 players, and more than 20 (!) cancellations. Odd for BG; they usually fill up 35-50 slots for their one-day tournaments.
My only complaint about the tournament organization came from something FoB apparently mandated- that the games would be limited to two hour rounds, rather than the 2.5 (and extra 15min setup/deployment period) BG had planned. Two hours rounds for 2k points was a bad idea even in 5th edition; some armies (notably hordier ones) would always struggle to finish in that short a period. Trying it in the brand-new 6th ed was just plain dumb. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking.
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Game 1
Was against Bill McF, formerly of the Warm Fabric Nationals club, now with Dark Star, the current North East Warhammer Club Champions. Bill and I have played before at BG and I’ve seen him at a bunch of events; he’s a good sportsman, good player, and good painter, who’ve I’ve seen field a variety of strong, interesting, and attractive armies, and seems to eschew netlists and makes an effort at coming up with his own variations. Exactly my favorite type of opponent.
First round mission was Vanguard Deployment, kill points primary, quadrants secondary (flyers didn’t count toward them).
Bill was fielding Orks + Eldar allies (Desperate Allies)
Biker WB
Big squad of nob bikes
20 shoota boys, nob w/klaw & pole
In BW with two big shootas, deffrolla
20 shoota boys, nob w/klaw & pole
In BW with three big shootas, deffrolla
10 Grots + herder
15 lootas
15 lootas
Allied Farseer with RoWa, Divination
5 Rangers
I deployed my harlies with farseer, rhino with squad + priest, and one squad of Defenders (well away from the action). Bill deployed everything except his grots. The game started off with Bill lighting up my Harlequins. A drive + disembark from BW + 18” shoot from 19 shoota boys, plus 30 lootas, killed most of my Harlies despite 2+ cover. His big bad biker squad headed for my side, shooting up but not busting my Rhino. I made the bikers go back and forth by dropping my 10 assault marines in his backfield right (where the rangers + farseer were lurking), letting me get those two KPs and threaten to take that quadrant, forcing him to send the bikes backwards to kill them. I zoomed both my Stormravens and their cargo up into Bill’s backfield left, to take out the Lootas and another disembarked squad of Boyz. My Rhino squad and reserved Defenders took on the 20 shootas in midfield; sadly my Farseer died before I got rid of Bill’s Runes; one failed Ghosthelm save from Perils, and some shooting from Lootas did for him. My Harlequins wound up being just the shadowseer running for my back left corner and hiding in terrain to preserve half points and the KP for the unit. My Furioso and Death Company killed all 30 lootas and 20 shoota boyz. The SRs blew up both battlewagons, then flew over to the right side of the table to try to kill Bill’s Grots, and to offer another distraction for Bill’s bikers. At one point I only Hovered one of them to try to buy my other units some time, but Bill was smart and just split off his warboss to kill it, leaving the rest of the bikers still able to go finish off my rhino squad. My Defender squads both climbed up into the second floor of ruins to get away from the bikers, as did my Rhino squad for a turn; then they wound up engaged with the middle shoota boy squad, and both units chewed each other down to a few models before the nobs showed up and finished my assault squad. Thankfully my Defenders were able to finish off the last couple of Shoota boys by shooting down from the second floors of their respective ruins.
In the end I had a minor win on KP 8 to 6 (he still had his warboss, nobs, and grots; I had my Reclusiarch, DC, Furioso, one SR, one harlequin in a corner and both Defender units) and we drew quadrants, but I got all or almost all of the bonus points, for a total of 21 out of a possible 28. Notable rules stuff included my screwing up how my Locator Beacons interact with Skies of Blood (sorry, Bill!), and the importance of Going to Ground in Area Terrain being +2 to cover saves now. This is what kept my Defenders alive at the end of the game with a pile of twin-linked big shootas mere inches away.
Round 2
Someone I’d never played before, named Frank, with Dark Eldar. Frank was very nice, and looked to have put a lot of thought into his army. Sadly a good bit of it was unpainted and some of it not modeled/WYSIWYG, which was disappointing. For some reason non-modeled stuff is always more annoying when it’s the standard “always-take” units. If you’re going to always field Venoms with double Splinter Cannons, why wouldn’t you model on both of the splinter cannons? Anyway, despite that gripe, Frank was great and we had a very good, tactical game.
The mission had Dawn of War (old Pitched Battle) deployment, and featured four objectives placed in a rectangle, each 24” in from a short table edge and 18” from a long table edge, thus forming a box 12”x24”. The primary was to hold five zones formed by drawing lines from those four objectives to the table corners, thus making four isosceles trapezoids, and the fifth zone being the rectangle in the center. You held them using the same rules as holding quadrants from mission one. Secondary was holding the four objectives.
Frank D – DE + Eldar allies (Battle Brothers)
Baron
Leading sizeable squad of beasts- 4 razorwings, pile of chimera.
5 Trueborn with two dark lances, in 2x splinter cannon venom
10 warriors w/dark lance in raider with DL
10 Warriors w/dark lance in raider with DL
5 Wyches with haywire, poisoned blade, in 2x splinter cannon venom
5 Wyches with haywire, poisoned blade, in 2x splinter cannon venom
2 Ravagers with 3xDL
Flyer with double darklances, 4 missiles
Allied farseer on jetbike with RoWa, singing spear, divination (attached to beasts with baron)
5 Fire Dragons incl exarch with tank hunter, dragonsbreath flamer
...manning Bastion with Quad Gun
5 Dire Avengers
Frank’s combo of a BS5 exarch with Tank Hunter manning the Quad Gun was an awesome one. Prescience on the big beast Death Star was also scary. Turn 1 was Night Fighting, and I set up well using cover, but managed to forget that all the DE units have Night Vision, so I wouldn’t be safe over 36” away, and wouldn’t benefit from better cover saves. A saving grace for me in this game was that the table was full of very tall ruins and a couple of Bastions (which we played as just Impassible), which meant that the turn my Storm Ravens shows up, I was able to move them aggressively forward to shoot good targets, but get 4+ cover from one thanks to a tall ruin, and 3+ cover for the other thanks to a Bastion. This kept the FD exarch from doing much to them.
This game was mostly a shooty duel, as Frank kept his deathstar hidden in a tall ruin, and I kept my Harlies hidden in a short one (but with solid walls which kept them fully hidden), and neither of them wanted to move out into the other’s charge range. Thankfully for me, my ruin was just inside the right side zone, so my harlies were holding a “neutral” trapezoid, while Frank’s haven for his beasties was in his own center DZ, so for most of the game it was just more points in the main zone he was holding anyway. Over the course of the game I won the shooting match, on T2 popping 1-2 vehicles, then T3 popping four or five (!), as well as the bastion. Frank was battling back, though, finally committing his beasts to the fray on my left, in the opposite direction from my harlies, to take out my 10 man jump squad which had dropped into his backfield, popping a ravager and bullying his small infantry units on that flank. Sadly with the number of units we had, and the careful shooting and maneuvering, we only managed to get in four turns. If we could have played to completion my Death Company was going to have to make a heroic charge on the beasts and have a proper slobberknocker. But with the time limit, I instead just moved the DC into the middle zone to take it and secure me the primary win by massacre, 4 zones to 1, while I charged my Reclusiarch in solo to lock the beasts in place for the bottom of the last turn while they finished off the last couple of jump marines, so as to prevent the big squad from Consolidating across a zone line to give him a second held zone. Also with the short game I was only able to take one objective (albeit to Frank’s zero), getting the minor win on the secondary. So I had a more decisive win this round, but thanks to failing to complete 5 turns, got the same 21pts for the round as I had in round 1.
Round 3, Simon L. Simon’s a great guy and former GT winner at Mechanicon with his counts-as DoA Blood Angels variant on his big and gorgeous Sisters army. For a while he was the #1 Sisters player, then I think briefly #1 BA player, on Rankings HQ. He’s usually lurking on the top tables at BG tournaments, and is a great drinking and gaming associate; some epic times were had with him in Vegas last year at Throne of Skulls (where he also was top Sisters player). However Simon and I had not yet been matched up in a tournament prior this game.
Simon’s in the middle of moving for law school, which meant he did not have his own minis with him, and was borrowing from Bill. Simon fielded:
IG + GK allies (Allies of Convenience)
Yarrick
Leading 5 squad platoon blobbed up- something like 3x power axe, 2-3 plasma guns, 5 lascannons
Another platoon of 2-3 squads deployed split up, with autocannons & GLs. Both CCS had lascannons, IIRC.
Two heavy weapon teams with triple autocannons.
Manticore
Manticore
Squadron of 2 Collossi
Coteaz
10-ish henchmen including 5-6 psykers, 3 plasmacannon servitors, some cheap warrior bullet catchers
10-ish henchmen including 5-6 psykers, some cheap warrior bullet catchers
This is a darn scary army, designed to make use of 6th ed changes and to play these missions well. Orders to make his weapons teams or five-lascannon platoon Twin Linked give him some anti-flyer. Multiple barrage weapons throwing an average of six large pie-plates per round, S10 or S6 AP3/Ignores Cover, plus the plasmacannons and large blasts from the henchman psykers, meant he could throw down some massive shooting against dismounted squads, and of course all those heavy weapons made transport-popping easy too. Yarrick also made his platoon an incredibly durable and nasty death star.
Mission was Vanguard deployment, five objectives (one in the center worth 1, the others each worth 2 and set up in a rectangle in mid-table; each 18” from both a long and a short edge), kill points as secondary.
The table we were on did not do me a lot of favors; four ruins distributed mostly toward the corners, with just a 1.5” tall hill, and a large (like 12”x12”) but low area of rough terrain/non-ruin, non-LOS blocking cover, and a couple of long low (.75”) walls around the middle of the table. Vanguard deployment allowed Simon to set up a nice wide + deep front, with his vehicles all snuggled up in a ruin for pretty good cover, and some of his heavy weapons also up on the second floor of the ruin for better LOS. I had first turn, and set up with one squad of Defenders deep on my far left flank in cover, my rhino squad + priest embarked mostly covered in a ruin toward the middle-right, my 10 man jumpers spread out to the right flank from there to get FNP and not be too bunched up for templates, screening my harlies, who were a bit bunched, trying to fit into the right narrow end of my triangular DZ, to make a flank run through some ruins over there.
Thanks to Coteaz, Simon Seized the Initiative, and lit me up about as savagely as I’ve been lit up on turn 1 in quite a while. Between the templates and other shooting of various kinds, I lost my Rhino (his lascannons), 7 or 8 of the guys in it (manticores), 7-8 of my jumping assault marines (plasma cannons, collateral colossus hits), my farseer and all but two or three of my harlies (colossi battery wounding me on 2s and ignoring my cover saves). Nasty. I had lost ~400-500pts of stuff before getting a move. For the next two turns my surviving stuff on the table mostly moved into cover and hunkered down to wait for reinforcements. On turn 2 I struck back, with both Storm Ravens showing up, Zooming close to 36”, and Exploding all FOUR artillery tanks using close-range multimelta, bloodstrikes, and assault cannon fire. I was back in the game! Sadly I had very little assault power left (just really the contents of the SRs), and all of Simon’s infantry was still untouched.
On the edges my Defenders were gradually losing guys to templates, and my Reserved squad ran right back off the table the turn after it arrived. The left flank one did eventually make it onto an objective, though, just ahead of Coteaz and a squad of his buddies who couldn’t quite reach it in the time we had. Simon finished off my jumpers with some heavy weapon shooting, but was having trouble nailing the last couple of harlequins, who kept using terrain for 2+ cover. In the middle my priest and one surviving foot marine from the rhino managed to lurk in a ruin and then behind the hill, surviving long enough to get to a second objective.
Turn 3 was big, with Simon not having luck knocking down my birds, just Immobilizing the Furioso’s ride, which forced the Dread to Skies of Blood out the back, and not be able to assault until turn 4. Turn 3 is also when my DC + Chaplain made a heroic charge into Yarrick’s super blob. This is where the insanity happened, where I’m hoping GW might offer some clarification of Yarrick’s personal force field and whether it and his T4 apply to the entire unit if wounds are filtered through him then dumped off using Look Out Sir. As it happened forty re-rolled I4 attacks from 8 DC did 36 wounds, about 8-10 of which were lost once the closer models had died and I was forced to re-roll all my remaining wounds against Yarrick’s higher toughness.* The second round was even worse, as now my DC were only wounding Yarrick on a 4+, re-rolling successes, so wounding a squad of guardsmen with 25% of their hits, rather than 67%. Simon cunningly forced my Reclusiarch to fight his un-upgraded Sgts for the first two rounds, while Yarrick and his guys with power axes inflicted significant casualties back on my DC. My saving graces were that A) Simon had forgotten to Overwatch with Yarrick’s ugly mob, and B) My Fist and Thunder Hammer were grinding away reliably. Just not fast enough.
On turn 4 Simon threw a few more shots down range, and managed to finally explode my previously-undamaged SR. Coteaz’ squad couldn’t quite reach an objective, and the blob was quite near one, but my DC were keeping them just off of it. However two of Simon’s individual IG infantry squads got to two other objectives. That had been my dilemma on turn 3; I just didn’t have enough units left to attack those infantry squads AND hit Yarrick’s blob. I might have been able to take out one or both (maybe; if I lined up the multi assault just right, and didn’t get boned by a failed assault roll) of those infantry squads, but then Yarrick’s enormous Death Blob would get the charge on my DC and be able to kill them, and I would be hard-pressed to do any significant damage to the blob with no charge bonus attacks, no furious charge, and no re-rolls. On the bottom of 4 my DC continued to grind away at the blob, the immobilized SR had to Zoom off the table (counting as dead at the end because it was in Ongoing Reserve), the other SR shot some IG and tried to force a break test, my Furioso ate one of the infantry squads holding an objective, and (mentioned above) the remnants of my Rhino squad and remaining Defender squad held two objectives.
Again I had run up against the two hour time limit, and the game ended. I held two 2pt objectives, Simon had the 1pt objective in the middle. There were a maximum possible 9 objective points if you held all five; the mission scoring was massacre if you had 5 more objective pts than your opponent, major if you had 4 more, minor if you had less. I had 4 points to Simon’s 1, so only a Minor win on the primary. I lost KPs badly, having only scored three(!) for the vehicles. I did not get ANY from the infantry. Simon had my farseer, both stormravens, my jump squad, my rhino, and a squad of defenders. IIRC he did finally finish off my Harlequins on turn 3 or 4 as well. So he won KPs 7 to 3 or 6 to 3, taking the major win on the secondary. I only got 1 of the 5 secondary objectives this game, IIRC, while Simon got several of them. No completion bonus, sadly. I believe the final score was 8pts me to 9pts him, or possibly 8/10, with me technically winning the primary, but him getting more points via the secondary bonuses.
*In retrospect, my DC + Reclusiarch unit will mitigate this a bit on the charge, as they’re already re-rolling failed wounds from the Rec. I need to remember to set those wound dice aside if I’m in this situation again, as they can’t be re-rolled a second time.
At the finale I finished out of the prizes/placings, but with three wins to my name (albeit that last one pyrrhic at best, and arguably more of a draw, considering the points). I had three fun games, on three good tables, against three challenging, skilled, and sportsmanlike opponents. So a great day of gaming, all things considered.
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