In the
Death Guard Tactica thread I found the
LVO list which's almost made it to the top5.
The noticable difference of that particular list was the inclusion of the Aquila Strongpoint fortification.
Albeit it is the centerpiece of the army, the true powerhouse was the combo of 30 Pink horrors with enough reinforcement points to get all the blues and brimstones, and 20 Poxwalkers under the effects of Cloud of Flies and the Dead walk again strategems.
So at maximum you could get 150 extra poxwalkers from horrors alone.
My list:
Aquila Strongpoint:
Poxwalkers:
Changeling:
Typhus:
Changecaster with the staff and endless grimoire (Gaunt Summoner) and the regular Changecasters:
I just added additional Tzeetch battalion to the 2k version of the list.
I regret not including Nurgle battalion instead (with Poxbringer and 3*3 Nurglings) - it almost costed me one game.
Tournament rules allowed maximum of 12-0 score from mission and the rest 8 points spread came from the point cost difference of killed units.
Game 1:
Mission: Front Line Warfare
Deployment: Search and Destroy.
Picture of the opponent's Army: Ultramarines
One of the predator was led by Chronus.
I used aquila to get first turn and put pink horrors in deep strike.
Won the roll of and chose to go first deploying pink horrors, buffing them and poxwalkers and scoring 7 wounds on Chronus from Aquila.
Cullexus prevented me from smiting, but later was killed by pink horrors.
End of my turn 1: (sorry for the tray on the board)
The opponent feared I will continue killing his predators and focused Aquila scoring wooping 18 wounds.
Other squads shot at pink horrors (i used warp surge to get +1 to save), just giving me more poxwalkers and later charged them.
Next turn poxwalkers arrived and the rest of the game was the melee slaughter.
The only noticable archievement of my enemy was killing the Aquila on turn 2.
I killed everything except the predators and couple razorbacks
and won 18-2.
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Game 2:
Mission: Maelstrom of War: Targets of Opportunity
Deployment: Dawn of War
Picture of the opponent's Army: Sisters of Battle (with 3 Exorcists) + Celestine + Inquisition
The game was rather... uneventful.
I was going first (again thanks to the bonus I got by placing characters in the Aquila Strongpoint).
Deepstriked the horrors in the middle of the battlefield and waited for the opponent to make his move.
Aquila missed.
Sisters moved towards me with everything. Rhinos charged the horrors, Seraphims charged cultists in the middle.
On the right flank Eversor was fighting with 10 cultists and 20 brimstones (he won at turn 4 with 1 wound left).
Exorsits did 6 wounds on the Aquila (spoiler: they didn't kill it in 5 turns) - their d3 damage is pathetic.
The rest of the game is summarized by this picture:
There were more and more poxwalkers on the left flank. I swarmed two rhinos (killed one), coteaz (didn't kill), two cannoneses (killed), priest and one 10 man squad of sisters.
Daemon prince killed the celestine, but she raised herself into the backfield.
Too late I realized I'm wasting reinforcement points waiting for my opponent to start killing pink horrors (which he didn't) and on turn 3 I started to summon Blightdrones, Plaguebearers - they didn't do anything, but scored markers for Maelstrom.
The overall losses were minscule, both sides losing around 300-400 points.
But i was very lucky on Maelstrom missions, got many with d3 points,
and won 16-4.
Aquila Strongpoint mostly tried to eradicate backfield units of sisters sitting on the markers and it did relatively poor killing 9 sisters total.
Ended Top1 after day 1, because my competitors mostly played the second game around draw results, which is predictable given how random the mission is.
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Game 3:
Mission: Maelstrom of War: Tactical Gambit (with pre-arranged markers position) - this one is hilariosly tricky to play.
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Picture of the opponent's Army: Daemons of Nurgle (18 blightdrones, 9 nurglings, 2 poxbringers) + Daemons of Tzeentch (changeling, changecasters, 8 screamers and 9 squads of brimstones with pink horrors "sergeant")+ 1k Sons (arhiman on foot and two sorcerers) - bastion was just the scenery and used as ruins.
The deployment before turn 1 (pink horrors in deep strike):
The hardest game of the tournament turned out in my favor due to the huge army building mistake on the opponent's part.
The mission is very tricky until you realize that guessing 1 sucessful mission is universaly good strategy unless you are completely dominant on the table.
When he blocked the midfield with nurglings I almost panicked and regretted I didn't have my own little ones.
I had first turn (again) and moved carefully to allow pink horrors to deep strike as close to the nurgling and the middle of the table as possible.
Their shooting was not enough to get first blood (i spread 30 shots for each squad of nurglings).
The aquila missed.
My opponent rushed forward with blightdrones outflanking my army with screamers.
I made mistake by placing heroes close enough for 1k sons to reach them with their trait.
Changeling barely survived bolt of change and doombolt to the face with 1 wound remaining.
Than pink horrors started to cast smites at my troops 24" away...
wait, what?
Turned out my opponent placed 1k sons not in the separate command detachment, but into the one of 3 Tzeentch daemons detachments as mandatory
HQ choices, genuinely thinking he gets 1k detachment because all the units came from 1k sons codex.
Well, he wasn't the most experienced player.
Judge decided he can't change his roster so deep into the tournament... now he's got 15 command points to spend without access to 1k sons strategems and their legion trait.
This turned game around, cause now my heroes could safely roam the battlefield without worring about orbital strikes and long range casting.
On turn 2 I charged both Bloatdrone squads and the long tedious midfield combat began.
I ran out of
CP on
turn 3, right when he finished my horrors.
But after them on
turn 4 came over 80 poxwalkers... which hit like hammers.
One of the 1k sons sorcerers exploded on the perils assisted by the Daemonic Possession stratagem: 2d3 Mortal wounds on perils hurt... He didn't rerolled double 6 cause he wanted to finish my daemon prince, but Disgustingly Resilient rolls were high enough and my
DP retreated to safety.
After the demise of the horrors I had enough points to summon my own bloatdrones, but they didn't make the charge and did absolutely nothing.
(The horrors to the left of Typhus are loses)
Unfortunately I couldn't kill ALL the bloatdrones on turn 4 and 5 (where game ended), but I killed a lot, and also kllled changecaster and got one of his home markers, scoring 5 total and rolling 5 on the Great Game mission.
I won 15-5: 11-1 from maelstrom points difference and 4-4 for EXACTLY same cost of units killed. Again I was lucky enough to get many d3 victory points missions and my opponent had two turns with zero missions archieved (which gave me 2 extra points).
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Game 4:
Mission: Eternal War: Relic (6 victory points) and two towers (one marker in each deployment zone worth 3 victory points each in the end of the game)
Deployment: Spearhead Assault
Picture of the opponent's Army: Saim Hann Eldars with Alaitoc Crimson Hunters.
I anticipated facing eldar in the final game. Vengence for the
LVO loss shall be avenged.
The roster was tooled to survive their filthy xenos tricks.
Yet my opponent made dire mistake which made the game quite boring and predictable.
He had put the forbiddable part of his army at the ... spearhead of the deployment zone, wishing to capitalize on shining spears rapid movement.
But he was so reckless he didn't screen them enough and after I deepstriked my pink horrors 25 of them could shoot at shining spears... and also they claimed the relic.
Buffed with Flickering flames 75 shots killed 5 of them, last one killed by the Aquila Strongpoint.
From that point I pressed forward, he retreated shooting me from afar, wave serpent repeatedly charged my horrors to avoid further losses from their fire.
Three Crimson Hunters tried to kill Aquila Strongpoint only scoring 18 wounds over the game.
I killed serpent (with buffed poxwalkers), one of the crimson hunters (with smite).
My opponent managed to kill all the horrors (I quickly ran out of
CP due to necessity of Warp Surge bonus to save to comensate the penalty from Jinx psychic power and many horrors fled from morale at the end game), but overall the kill count was close enough. The Aquila only killed 1 shining spearman on turn 1 and scored 3 wounds on wave serpent.
I won 13-7.
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Meanwhile my main competitor - the Tyranids - were slaughtered by ... sisters of battle for 4-16 loss, thus allowing me to end up Top-1 despite pretty low result of the last game.
The pictures of the game were too brutal and censored by the Ordo Xenos, so I just have random shot of the Tyranids.
Those who witnessed say sisters outmaneuvered the nids and clashed them from two sides into the close combat, eradicating almost all smaller ones and most of the monsters.
Top1: Me
Top2: Eldars I played with
Top3:Tyranids that lost to sisters