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POST-TOURNAMENT REVIEW:
That was a fun and great tournament. Everyone I played against was really cool. It was also a challenging one, especially my game #2 against Kingsley, which I would have to give the Match of the Tournament to. I ended up tied with Kingsley for 2nd place with 2-0-1 each. There were 2 players to go 3-0: Janthkin's Slaaneshi Chaos Marines with Daemon allies and the Space Marine/Imperial Guards player who got thumped by my Game #1 opponent just 2 days before. Both of them were losing badly in one of their games (Janthkin to my Game #3 opponent and the SM/IG player to a tyranid army very similar to Janthkin's) but both were saved by a little luck. Congrats.

Going into the tournament, I knew that my Double-Trouble list wasn't balanced and would probably have a tough time against certain armies and in certain matchups (like Emperor's Will with Hammer & Anvil deployment). Honestly, the lack of mobility in my list, as well as the lack of shooting, really hurts it. Its resilience helps it somewhat, but in a multiple objectives-based mission, this list will always have trouble. I think my generalship got me through the games, but if I were to go up against perhaps more seasoned players, I don't know if this army will have what it takes to pull off the win. Then again, like I said before, my goal in this tournament wasn't really to win it. Rather, I just wanted to have fun and see how my chaos can compete with some of the more competitive armies - the "big boys". In that regards, I've certainly achieved my goal and had a lot of fun.

As far as how my units did, I would probably give the MVP of the tournament to my obliterators. It was their shooting that knocked down 2 dreadknights, Coteaz and his unit and 1 vehicle in Game #1. In game #2, they killed 1 storm talon and 1 whirlwind but more importantly, they withstood and absorbed 3 turns of firing from practically my opponents entire army. In game #3, they were responsible for 3 of the 4 kill points - 2 rhinos and the vendetta. Their flexibility and resiliency was utterly amazing in my games, especially when you put Abaddon in there to soak up some of the Insta-killing wounds. I would say that the Runner-up would have to be Abaddon. He was a beast in Game #1, killing a dreadknight and Mordrak. In Game #2, he soaked up a huge amount of firepower, killed the shas'el and several combat squads and gave me Linebreaker for the tie. In Game #3, he was a psychological threat that I suspect probably kept the wolves away. He and the oblits also absorbed an astonishing amount of fire power, including 2 turns of First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire! from the IG blob squad as well as bolters and plasmas from the hunters and missiles from the long fangs. Overall, Abaddon is a beast and a huge psychological weapon that affected the way my opponent played. Does that make him a HQ that every Chaos player has to take? No, but it sure made this list pretty darn entertaining to play.

So until next time, I'll see you at the Bay Area Open.


PS - A couple of days later, Janthkin and I had our battle that didn't happen....my Double-Trouble list against his Slaaneshi Chaos.

The one mission that mech players fear: Purge the Alien.

Overall, solid victory Jy2!

 jy2 wrote:


PS - A couple of days later, Janthkin and I had our battle that didn't happen....my Double-Trouble list against his Slaaneshi Chaos.

You really are spoiling us of late. Can't wait to see that conflict play out.

How is Janthkin's Chaos army set up?

Awesome battle for the chaos. I've gone back and looked at some of your recent battle reports, really cool stuff!

How were the Oblits able to TL fire against the Vendetta?

 Eldarain wrote:

 jy2 wrote:


PS - A couple of days later, Janthkin and I had our battle that didn't happen....my Double-Trouble list against his Slaaneshi Chaos.

You really are spoiling us of late. Can't wait to see that conflict play out.

How is Janthkin's Chaos army set up?

His list consisted of this (from my guesstimate):


Slaaneshi Lord on Steed - Murder Sword
Lvl 3 Slaaneshi Sorcerer
Slaaneshi Herald (naked)

6x Fiends of Slaanesh - Unholy Might

6x Sonic Marines - Blastmaster, Sonic weapons
6x Sonic Marines - Blastmaster, Sonic weapons
6x Sonic Marines - Blastmaster, Sonic weapons
19x Cultists
5x Daemonettes

Heldrake

5x Havocs - 2x Autos, 2x Missiles

Slaanesh Daemon Prince - 3+, Wings, Pavane, Breath of Chaos, Hit & Run


Overall, the tournament was the very first time he ever used this list. Also, it really wasn't the list that he had wanted to take. He was going to bring 2 heldrakes but couldn't finish the 2nd one in time. Thus, he just added the DP last minute to keep it Slaaneshi-themed.

Unfortunately, there will be no battle report for this game. Janthkin called me from out of the blue for a pick-up game and I didn't have my camera with me. We were also under time-constraints so I didn't bother to go home and get it.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vemlin wrote:
Awesome battle for the chaos. I've gone back and looked at some of your recent battle reports, really cool stuff!

How were the Oblits able to TL fire against the Vendetta?

They can use multi-melta or twin-linked meltaguns. I fired the tl-meltaguns.

 jy2 wrote:

Unfortunately, there will be no battle report for this game. Janthkin called me from out of the blue for a pick-up game and I didn't have my camera with me. We were also under time-constraints so I didn't bother to go home and get it.

Well as I said you really have been spoiling us with the number of reports you're churning out, it's much appreciated.

Who won?

 Eldarain wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Unfortunately, there will be no battle report for this game. Janthkin called me from out of the blue for a pick-up game and I didn't have my camera with me. We were also under time-constraints so I didn't bother to go home and get it.

Well as I said you really have been spoiling us with the number of reports you're churning out, it's much appreciated.

Who won?

I did.

Very well done, I am a bit disappointed that Abaddon did not spawn himself this game. I also whiffed badly on just about all the game results - I attribute it to underestimating your abilities as a general. Many reports you post here are against top notch opponents, so facing a more uniform distribution of players really differentiates skill in these games.

 calypso2ts wrote:
Very well done, I am a bit disappointed that Abaddon did not spawn himself this game. I also whiffed badly on just about all the game results - I attribute it to underestimating your abilities as a general. Many reports you post here are against top notch opponents, so facing a more uniform distribution of players really differentiates skill in these games.

Well, I liked your analysis anyways. From just a list-perspective, they were probably better and more balanced than mine and you weren't given any info with regards to mission-type, deployment and the skill levels of my opponents.

I think my opponents were too afraid to get into combat with Abaddon. Well, all except my GK opponent.

 Janthkin wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Stormtalons can only use their special Hover Strike, they cannot do a normal Hover Mode move-- otherwise my second Stormtalon certainly would have come into play as another blocking unit.

That was the missing piece; thanks for clarifying. Silly Space Marines.

Are you still happy with the bastion?

Yes. I have found it very useful. However I think it is not a choice that most armies profit from, as in many cases an Aegis Defense Line will be superior.

The Bastion provides the following advantages:

-Guaranteed LoS-blocking terrain (especially useful for objectives)
-Extremely high durability for unit inside against shooting (AV14 buildings more or less don't care about many armies-- autocannons, missile launchers, plasma guns, and almost every gun in Codex: Necrons are useless or near-useless against it)
-3+ cover for units (inc. vehicles) drawing cover from the sides of the building (note that this does not apply to units on the battlements)

However, the Aegis Defense Line provides a much greater amount of cover (and better cover) for infantry. In armies with weak saves, especially Imperial Guard, the Aegis seems like a perhaps better choice. The Bastion is ideal for protecting a single unit that is a potential lynchpin. For instance, I use it to protect my Broadside Battlesuits, which are a really strong anti-tank unit as well as a backup anti-flyer unit. Against many opponents the Bastion more or less makes the Broadsides invulnerable.

Other units that strike me as appealing for putting inside Bastions include Retributors, Vindicare Assassins, Trueborn with Dark Lances, and Tau Pathfinders-- units with efficient firepower that are typically "glass cannons."

Hey Guys-
I was the Space Wolf/IG player in the 3rd game, and I will say, playing jy2 and Janthkin in the tourney were great introductions to 6th edition tournament play. In the game against jy2, I found myself believing I could shoot my way progressively through jy2's army, starting with the Obliterators and Abbadon. I haven't played since 4th edition, and believe me, lasguns as just as awful now as they were back then. Combined with his Oblit's 2+ saves, I just didn't have enough AP2 to kill em. By the time I realized this was a bad target selection for the majority of my army, the game had been decided by my poor placement and destruction of my rhinos. The Vendetta died and it was game over...The mission type was tough from the beginning, I'm not that new to not know that, and in hindsight I should have probably thrown everything forward in a mass wave of carnage and saw what ended up standing. But I trusted to my gun line and it didn't kill enough... Need another Valk, possibly a Leman Russ Demolisher... until next time!

Good effort, and good attitude!

Lasguns can do a surprising amount of damage, especially with FRFSRF, but when shooting at a unit with T5 and 2+ armor, you're only averaging 1 wound per 36 hits, which is not usually a recipe for success.

 SabrX wrote:
The one mission that mech players fear: Purge the Alien.

Overall, solid victory Jy2!

Thanks!

Fortunately, it isn't as bad as it used to be as only 1 in 6 missions are like this. But hey, if you choose to go mech, then you should be aware of this limitation, just as a foot-list should be aware that heldrake-spam will kill his army.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Janthkin wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Stormtalons can only use their special Hover Strike, they cannot do a normal Hover Mode move-- otherwise my second Stormtalon certainly would have come into play as another blocking unit.

That was the missing piece; thanks for clarifying. Silly Space Marines.

Are you still happy with the bastion?

Yes. I have found it very useful. However I think it is not a choice that most armies profit from, as in many cases an Aegis Defense Line will be superior.

The Bastion provides the following advantages:

-Guaranteed LoS-blocking terrain (especially useful for objectives)
-Extremely high durability for unit inside against shooting (AV14 buildings more or less don't care about many armies-- autocannons, missile launchers, plasma guns, and almost every gun in Codex: Necrons are useless or near-useless against it)
-3+ cover for units (inc. vehicles) drawing cover from the sides of the building (note that this does not apply to units on the battlements)

However, the Aegis Defense Line provides a much greater amount of cover (and better cover) for infantry. In armies with weak saves, especially Imperial Guard, the Aegis seems like a perhaps better choice. The Bastion is ideal for protecting a single unit that is a potential lynchpin. For instance, I use it to protect my Broadside Battlesuits, which are a really strong anti-tank unit as well as a backup anti-flyer unit. Against many opponents the Bastion more or less makes the Broadsides invulnerable.

Other units that strike me as appealing for putting inside Bastions include Retributors, Vindicare Assassins, Trueborn with Dark Lances, and Tau Pathfinders-- units with efficient firepower that are typically "glass cannons."

I agree. The ADL is better for more armies and in more situations. However, the bastion does have its uses with certain armies.

I especially like the vindicare-in-a-box suggestion. I may just give that a try....after I get my bastion.

lamada22 wrote:
Hey Guys-
I was the Space Wolf/IG player in the 3rd game, and I will say, playing jy2 and Janthkin in the tourney were great introductions to 6th edition tournament play. In the game against jy2, I found myself believing I could shoot my way progressively through jy2's army, starting with the Obliterators and Abbadon. I haven't played since 4th edition, and believe me, lasguns as just as awful now as they were back then. Combined with his Oblit's 2+ saves, I just didn't have enough AP2 to kill em. By the time I realized this was a bad target selection for the majority of my army, the game had been decided by my poor placement and destruction of my rhinos. The Vendetta died and it was game over...The mission type was tough from the beginning, I'm not that new to not know that, and in hindsight I should have probably thrown everything forward in a mass wave of carnage and saw what ended up standing. But I trusted to my gun line and it didn't kill enough... Need another Valk, possibly a Leman Russ Demolisher... until next time!

Hi Phil,

It was good to meet you during the tournament. You run a solid SW list. I think with a little more practice whenever you have time, it's going to be a force to be reckoned with. It doesn't require much tweaking. The only thing it really needs is an Aegis Defense Line with Quad-guns both for anti-flyer defense and protection for your guys. To get that, I actually recommend dropping your transports - which is a First Blood liability - for the ADL and probably more bodies or special weapons.

I think if we had played the Relic, your chances for a victory would have been much better. But VP's was definitely a tough mission for you, especially against my army. My army doesn't give out VP's very easily.

BTW, if you ever feel like having a game, we are usually at Game Kastle on Thursday evenings 6-10pm.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Good effort, and good attitude!

Lasguns can do a surprising amount of damage, especially with FRFSRF, but when shooting at a unit with T5 and 2+ armor, you're only averaging 1 wound per 36 hits, which is not usually a recipe for success.

Agreed. Lasguns can actually do a lot of damage, but T5/2+ is just not a good target for it.

However, consider the book powers for your Rune Priest in the future. Prescience or Misfortune are devastatingly powerful when combined with so many shots. Or even both if you take a Lvl 2 psyker. In any case, I like the RP+blob combination.

Great reports! All good opponents and varied lists. Bugs are going to BAO then?

You should try a Nurgle Biker Lord with Burning Brand instead of Abaddon if you are looking to tweak. He can keep your Spawn going longer or run with a Biker unit and burn stuff.

Good stuff jy2

Very happy you went with Double Trouble, it's far and away the most interesting list I've seen you run. That said, I would love to mail you some round bases to replace all those square dudes, or just round base them myself if I could

- Salvage

They're Fantasy zombies from his brother's VC army; I think he'd object to rebasing them onto 25mm rounds from 20mm squares.

What is the basis for complaint when it comes to the round square debate?

It says to base them with what Is provided, and the only available GW zombies come with square bases.

 BladeWalker wrote:
Great reports! All good opponents and varied lists. Bugs are going to BAO then?

You should try a Nurgle Biker Lord with Burning Brand instead of Abaddon if you are looking to tweak. He can keep your Spawn going longer or run with a Biker unit and burn stuff.

I may just try that. But my first addition to the army will probably be a 2nd heldrake. At 1850, I can fit him in there without much problem but at 1750, Abaddon's probably going to have to go.

As for the BAO, let's just say there will be another vote-off in the future between what may be my 2 best armies - bugs and my wraithwing necrons.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Good stuff jy2

Very happy you went with Double Trouble, it's far and away the most interesting list I've seen you run. That said, I would love to mail you some round bases to replace all those square dudes, or just round base them myself if I could

- Salvage

If at the larger tournaments, then I may just have to switch out the bases but at the smaller local tournament, it wasn't really that big of a deal. Still, just in case, I brought more of my "zombie" guardsmen in case if I had to switch them out. So I was prepared for that eventuality. But the zombies really look much more like zombies and most people here subscribe to the rule of cool.

 Janthkin wrote:
They're Fantasy zombies from his brother's VC army; I think he'd object to rebasing them onto 25mm rounds from 20mm squares.

Nah, he probably wouldn't object. He doesn't really run them anymore, opting to go all skellies instead. But still, I'd have to get his permission and probably give him something in trade.

There is also 1 huge disadvantage about the 20mm squares and that is you can kill more of them with blasts/templates....especially after you pavane them.

 Eldarain wrote:
What is the basis for complaint when it comes to the round square debate?

It says to base them with what Is provided, and the only available GW zombies come with square bases.

I can see how some people may take issue with it. If I were to take this army to a larger tournament (like the BAO, Adepticon, Nova or the Golden Throne), I'd probably have to swap out the bases. But most likely, I'd probably end up getting new zombies so as to not mess with my brother's minis (he's still got 2 boxes of zombies unassembled). And just in case, I will bring my "cadian" cultists with me to tournaments in the off-chance that someone is anal enough to complain to the TO about them.

 Eldarain wrote:
What is the basis for complaint when it comes to the round square debate?.

It's almost entirely aesthetics for me

But as noted there are possible in game issues as well. Also not sure the 'base it with what it came with' argument holds up when you're using Counts As

- Salvage

Thank you for a really nice Batrep/Tournament rep ... It's been a pleassure following your tournament!

Awesome stuff - When's the next one?!

Vemlin wrote:
Awesome stuff - When's the next one?!

Shh...

Man, give the guy a break. SHAME!

I'm glad you all enjoyed my reports. It was almost as fun writing them as it was playing them.

Vemlin wrote:
Awesome stuff - When's the next one?!

The next large tournament I plan to attend will be the Bay Area Open in the beginning of March. It is perhaps the biggest tournament in the West Coast (US) and is a 2-day 6-7 game tournament. That will be a fun report to do and I hope you guys will enjoy it.

Until then, I'll probably put out 1 report or so each week.

Looking forward to them!

Don't get me started on square bases in 40k, though.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Looking forward to them!

Don't get me started on square bases in 40k, though.

As I really do not have a lot of the larger tournament experience, have you seen or heard about people bringing units with square bases to tournaments? If so, do you know what happened to them (if anything)?


BTW, next week I am going to be down in LA. I may get a game in against Blackmoor or Yakface (or maybe even both!).

 jy2 wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Looking forward to them!

Don't get me started on square bases in 40k, though.

As I really do not have a lot of the larger tournament experience, have you seen or heard about people bringing units with square bases to tournaments? If so, do you know what happened to them (if anything)?


BTW, next week I am going to be down in LA. I may get a game in against Blackmoor or Yakface (or maybe even both!).

I have. I've taken those same Slaaneshi daemons to tournaments (on those same bases) since 3e. Never had any problems.

I've seen people do it, and for a while I used to do i with my Lesser Daemon packs in my CSM army. Originally I thought it didn't make a material difference, and then I started noticing that it did. The square bases...

A) Allow the unit to Deep Strike in a tighter/smaller formation, making Deep Strike safer for the owning player.
B) Allow the unit to spread out in wider coherency, because the bases are ~40% wider across at the corners than the diameter of an equivalent-sized round base. This helps reduce the number of hits you take from blasts, and allows the unit to cover a wider space for purposes of assault and blocking.
C) Allow you to gain distance (up to nearly a half inch, with a 25mm base) by rotation of the base, like rectangular vehicles do. I was in a tournament where this made the difference between who won the final game to win the thing, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

After I realized that there actually aren't offsetting disadvantages to the squares, only advantages, I realized that the squares were functionally modeling for advantage, in addition to their aesthetic issues, and I re-based my lesser daemons.

I break it down in more detail in the thread linked above.

Now, the 20mm squares you're using actually are less of a problem, because they don't can so much distance, but they're still ~28mm wide corner to corner, which allows a small but measurable increase in coherency dispersion. Their smaller width also allows you to fit more guys in a smaller space so can be useful for hiding a unit more easily. They also (for my money) look even worse and more out of place on a 40k table. I would never personally use them, but I'd try not to be a jerk about it if I saw someone else do it, and I'd try to keep my feedback constructive and friendly.

 Mannahnin wrote:
I've seen people do it, and for a while I used to do i with my Lesser Daemon packs in my CSM army. Originally I thought it didn't make a material difference, and then I started noticing that it did. The square bases...

A) Allow the unit to Deep Strike in a tighter/smaller formation, making Deep Strike safer for the owning player.
B) Allow the unit to spread out in wider coherency, because the bases are ~40% wider across at the corners than the diameter of an equivalent-sized round base. This helps reduce the number of hits you take from blasts, and allows the unit to cover a wider space for purposes of assault and blocking.
C) Allow you to gain distance (up to nearly a half inch, with a 25mm base) by rotation of the base, like rectangular vehicles do. I was in a tournament where this made the difference between who won the final game to win the thing, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

After I realized that there actually aren't offsetting disadvantages to the squares, only advantages, I realized that the squares were functionally modeling for advantage, in addition to their aesthetic issues, and I re-based all me lesser daemons.

I break it down in more detail in the thread linked above.

Cool. Good to know. If I were to take them to the BAO (which I'm not planning to, but you never know), I would rebase them. But in my casual games, I'd probably leave them as is (or my brother's minis at least).

Awesome reports (as usual) jy2! Glad you were able to take the pictures in a tourney setting. It's also nice to see I am not the only one taking unfinished models to tournies.