As the title now says, I've been to the tournament and played through it, 3 games vs hybrid gunline/mechanised Imperial Guard, Taucrons and Chaos Space Marines.
A note. Those were actually the only 3 people there because the
TO had, as I had suspected days before, put up the advertisement only two weeks or so beforehand, so obviously not everyone saw, usually the regulars consist of about 17+~ people. Flaw of management maybe, but the
TO was a great guy and took at as a point for improvement I think.
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Game 1
In the first game I played against the hybrid gunline/mechanised Guard list which was something along the lines of a platoon, Vets in Chimeras, some Primaris Psykers, a Bastion, a Leman Russ, a Vendetta and a manticore. The board was urban-heavy and I was basically forced to split my tanks into a double-tag team and a single-team on the left and right flank. The mission rolled was Purge the Alien.
Disaster struck on literally the 1st and 2nd turns because in the former, the first thing my opponent did was immobilise Pask's tank with the Manticore's single shot that round. It mostly meant that all Pask alone did that game was kill a Chimera and a squad of Vets later, but his squadron buddy later killed the Company Company Squad, an Icarus Lascannon and numerous infantry squad men. The right-flank single Chimera was immobilised by a single piece of spare
AT from a
PCS despite a huge cover save, so absurdly bad luck hurt me hard again. The Vets in that Chimera didn't really go anywhere during the game, but they didn't give up the kill point. The Leman Russ Exterminator with them went on to kill a Vendetta using its 7 high strength shots, wherein the Multi-Meltas hit of all things and killed it. That was 2
KP as there was an
SWS contained within which died.
I made sure to immediately target and kill the Manticore, stunning it in T2 and finishing it off in T3, though my first Vendetta had to hover and got wiped out. The second Vendetta popped the
CCS' Chimera, (hence why the squadron buddy Executioner managed to kill the
CCS) though of all things this game was almost certainly won because of a squad of Demo Vets. One of them reached the Bastion and melta-bombed it into oblivion, the occupiers all dying in the detonation result on a 7, allowing me to massacre all of the infantry surrounding it, including the now transport less
CCS. Bad luck was also a large part of T2 in terms of the fact that my other two Mech Vet squads got immobilised by ruins, so had to footslog it, one of these doing the aforementioned feat.
In the end, I had got 9 kill points and he had achieved 4, because my list structure gave very few away and because I only lost a Vendetta, a Chimera, the
LR Exterminator and First Blood SVP.
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Game 2
In the second game, the Taucrons had a list that I found the most difficult to beat. Tau Commander, Firewarriors in a Bastion with Kroot, Longstrike Hammerhead . Imotekh, Anni Barge, 2 Night Scythes (Teslamortals/Deathmarks-Cryptek) + maybe some other stuff
iirc. Mission was Big Guns Never Tire.
My opponent won the roll off to go first and immediately made me deploy first, and I had space to place all my 3 Leman Russes in close proximity (he had no large blasts at all) and my Chimeras close behind, ass-to-cheek for
LOS blockage and cover. This formation was assembled in the middle of my deployment (Dawn of War) I had a massive gamble to make straight off the bat when he deployed his Bastion in the top left corner, Hammerhead behind, Tau Commander behind, Anni-Barge on his mid behind a forest. The only target the Executioners could effectively fire at turn 1 was Firewarriors in the Bastion with 3+ cover saves, and I desperately needed to repeat last game's feat and kill the Bastion early. To accomplish this the Tank Commander's squadron didn't fire on the first turn, instead I used Full Throttle to give me far more distance up the table with my Chimeras, which then made a rush with only 1-2 dangerous terrains between them (thankfully none of which I failed) towards the Bastion, 1 squad getting there by T3,
2D6 melta-ing it to death and killing all 10 Kroot and the remaining 4-6~ Firewarriors on the Battlements in the ensuing detonation.
The Executioners picked on what they could, doing damage here and there, mostly being impossible to kill yet still (that said, Longstrike immobilised Pask on turn 1 again after it had powered forward) and the Exterminator killed an annhilation barge. The Vendettas came on and went straight for Longstrike, forcing him to jink T2 and killing him in T3 - because I knew in that same turn the Bastion would likely be dead, and since Longstrike really, really needed to die, I put the Vendettas into hover T3 and easily finished off Longstrike, even with a 2+/3+ jink from stealth/disruption pods (night fighting from Imotekh) and basically cleared the table of my opponent bar his Tau Commander and two Night Scythes.
From then on it was basically a bit of a mop up, the Executioners severely wounded the Tau Commander, it was too late for the Necron airborne embarked infantry to make a difference, and then the game ended on T5 with 5
VPs for me to 4
VPs for my opponent.. (1 objective, 2 killed Heavy Supports/1 objective, First Blood on a Chimera) This meant I'd won here as well.
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Game 3
The
CSM list in the third game consisted of a souped-up Daemon Prince with ML2, Burning Brand, Wings and various toys, a Khorne Berserker + Kharn deathstar in a Land Raider, a Baleflamer-drake, two 1 man Oblits units, and a squad of 10
CSM in a Rhino. Definitely not the strongest list, nor even a particularly good one, but the game taught me a few things.
To summarise it simply- The Land Raider came forward, disgorged the Berserkers and Kharn, who killed the Exterminator. I had realised at the very end of my turn that I had made a massive mistake and underestimated how fast he'd be able to get into combat, he was in reliable assault threat range of the Tank Commander's squadron. The only thing that suddenly fixed this problem was using full throttle to move 11'' away with the Tank Commander's squadron, avoiding an immediate "game over man, game over!" then and there. His butchering of my Exterminator was followed up by me melting the entire squad of Berserkers and Kharn with my Executioner squadron, and killing the Land Raider with a squad of disembarked melta Vets.
The rest of the game featured the Vendettas shooting down the Helldrake, failing to kill the Rhino for 2 turns in a row together (*sigh*) and then completely annihilating the Daemon Prince on the last turn when it finally landed.
A word on the Daemon Prince. He was expensive, casted 2-3 psychic powers a turn, fired off the brand, killing most of the stuff his army killed period. He spent the entire game flying around, because I was aware that if he landed he couldn't charge, and he was aware that the moment he landed the full wrath of the Tank Commander squadron would massacre it in a turn. His last ditch action was trying to contest an objective by cleverly placing his
DP in such a way only one Executioner could get within
LOS, though it wasn't enough and the Executioner/Vendettas still managed to wipe him from full wounds. The lesson here is just don't shoot
FMC's that are flying, and I always kept a deterrent Chimera full of vets nearer to the Russes if he tried anything. I took the 3 point/4 point objectives using the Chimeras and Vets relatively easy and blew my opponent off 2 of his objectives, solidifying my victory.
WTF Moment:
In turn 4, an Obliberator was holding an objective alone. An Executioner and all 3 Chimeras fired their multi-lasers at it, doing nothing thanks to very bad luck.
There was a stunned Chimera in the mid-field which had fired, within 24'' of the Oblierator with the top hatch. I realised this and gave it a go with my bolter sergeant and a lasgun buddy.
Lasgun misses. I roll a six followed by a six on the bolter. He fails his armour save and the Oblit dies, having suffered a wound in the previous turn from a Multi-laser
I'll show you how its done, you imbeciles *BLAM*
So that 1 pt upgrade there I had points lying around for? Totally worth it.
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Summary
I received the awards for Best General and Best Astra Militarum Commander. The games weren't super-highly competitive but they taught me a fair bit and confirmed my confidence in my tag-team theory for me at least.
Main lessons were:
1) Tank orders were first seen as garbage and naff, and those people were talking out of their rectums complete with waste substances. The only order that wasn't very effective at 1 point at least was Strike and Shroud because the Executioners just refused to die regardless, I never lost them once. Full throttle let me kill the anchor of my opponent's army in the second game a turn earlier, and in the third game prevented me from losing a 423 point unit when I made a mistake. The most used order was Gunners Kill on Sight -as my tactics in the
OP here went, often the Executioners would split fire and massacre two different targets.
2) Chimeras aren't that hard to kill still, but they generally last for as long as they need to last. Barring the tactical decision in turn 1 in game 1 wherein I had the single tag team split off (I could have had them behind the double tag-team I guess) and thus he easier neutralised the Chimera, no Chimera in any of the games got to a point where they hadn't accomplished their main function/job because of enemy fire killing them - in game 1 though having two immobilised Chimeras caused by dangerous terrains in the mid-field sucked, so......
2b) Dozer blades are
extremely valuable on Chimeras. Being able to confidently and easier rush into terrain for cover/quicker routes is very powerful often. They also make the Chimera better at ramming now too - what's to lose?
2c) Tauroxes are quite interesting, given they effectively have dozer blades minus the ramming effect stock on a cheaper platform. I didn't mention this in the game reports but on two occasions in game 2 the single back hatch forced me to take emergency disembarkations on Chimera deaths twice as the door got blocked off by other things(so the units that disembark effectively couldn't do anything for a turn) and in game 1 being immobilised facing the opponent's line directly lost me several inches of distance, whereas with a Taurox the side hatches would have made all the difference.
3) Don't shoot at flying
MC's, and they'll spend all game trying to be a considerably more expensive pseudo-Helldrake at best.
4) I'm on the fence about demolitions doctrine. On one hand, it was an important factor in winning the first game. On the other hand, its expensive, and I never threw a single demo-charge because on the best opportunity (the Kharn issue in game 3) the Executioners handled it. That said - 3 points per model (essentially) for a melta bomb is still arguably cheap.
5) I'm not sure about whether or not the Executioners were worth it.
+ Killed a fair few things in all 3 games, powerful enough to effectively guarantee the death of the
CCS in game 1 and Kharn's deathstar in game 3
+ Never died
+
HQ choice, remove need for a
CCS/Lord Commissar
(side point: only suffered a hull point loss from gets hot in game 3)
-The Punisher Cannon's versatility could have been better on Pask himself, though given that in two games Pask was immobilised that would have been pretty bad with just 24'' range.
-Didn't really make their points except in game 3
Iffy. I'm leaning more towards "they were worth it" personally.
Thoughts?
Shadowkeepers (4000 points)
3rd Company (3000 points) 
