Hello! I will be playing in an 1850 ITC 3 game tournament tomorrow and am bringing out a White Scars
CAD with Space Wolf allies.
I recently played a few test games with bikes (all have been posted here as well as www.youtube.com/agtthot40k) and have had a lot of success but learned a few things. Bikes are insanely good, but I am absolutely terrified of heldrakes, and Eldar players in my area are playing jink ignoring AP3 dark reapers.
Some of the things I have been testing out:
3 Storm Talons - 345pts, can kill Heldrakes, but they will still come on and do damage, and could potentially survive s6-7 shots. Can kill Dark Reapers, but again the damage will be done.
3 Centurions in a drop pod ( with or without Coteaz ) - 275/375
Almost guarantees first blood and killing an important target, but will be killed shortly afterwards and doesn't bring anything the rest of the army can't already bring.
Imperial Knight Paladin - 375
Grav hits something with Concussive, and the ummodified strength D at initiative 4 is practically guaranteed to kill it. Can deal good damage to hordes with multiple templates and stomps. Still doesn't protect my bikes.
I finally decided to use the Champions of Fenris Detachment and kitting my command squads with storm shields to vomit lots of strength 10 attacks and give me a 2+ armor save. They gain scout and hit and run, what more could you ask for? They will fly in formation leading with a 2+ save, rear protection of two stormshields, one stormshield up front for
LoS, and an Apothecary in the center for the extra 5+.
Will it work out? Should I have played one of the other options? I will be posting Sunday with the report!
White Scars
CAD
Khan - 150
5 bikes, 2 grav, combi grav - 145
5 bikes, 2 grav, combi grav - 145
5 bikes, 2 grav, combi grav - 145
Command Squad, bikes, 4 grav guns, apothecary, 3 storm shields - 230
Command Squad, bikes, 4 grav guns, apothecary, 3 storm shields - 230
Command Squad, bikes, 4 grav guns, apothecary, 3 storm shields - 230
Multimelta attack bike - 50
Multimelta attack bike - 50
Multimelta attack bike - 50
Wolves Unleashed
Wolf Lore, thunderwolf, powerfist, stormshield, runic armor - 215
Iron Priest, thunderwolf - 105
Iron Priest, thunderwolf - 105
GAME ONE, GREEN TIDE ORKS A huge fearless blob with feel no pain and a force field. This army makes Grav Guns useless, and was one of the only armies I was truly afraid of to play that I saw at this tournament.
[b]Primary - Purge the Alien 4pts, Maelstrom 4 pts, and tertiaries. He has two squads of regular Ork bikes, a couple grot squads for cover saves, a 10 man boyz squad, and the aforementioned Green Tide, with PK nobz, painboy, weirdboy, and warboss[i][u]
He wins the roll off to choose who goes first, and he decided to let me go first. I deploy on the 12" inch line, and I only scout up a couple inches. His entire 100+ Boyz gain furious charge and hammer of wrath if he gets the charge off on me, so I make sure I am 19 inches away so he cannot charge me with the huge blob. This army pretty much makes my Grav guns useless.
He deploys filling up pretty much his entire deployment zone and leaves his jetpack guys in reserves.
I shoot twin linked bolters and focus everything on a squad of grots to get first blood. A few other squads kill a couple of Boyz, but they have cover/
FnP and don't take many casualties. On his turn he moves everything up and runs, and I take practically no damage. I score my maelstrom points, he does not.
On my following turn, as noted, if he WAAAGHS and gets the charge off, he can get hammer of wrath, furious charge, he can run then charge, and reroll the charge dice. I pretty much have nowhere to go. I don't have enough room to run or bullets to shoot even if I could run, so I decide it is time to just go HAM.
I killed quite a few Boyz with rapidfire twin linked bolters, S5 hammer of wraths, and 2-4 attacks per bike. He has an insane amount of hidden power klaws, and kills quite a few bikes with them. His War Boss challenged my Wolf Lord, and the s10 attacks killed each other with instant death (I failed my single 3+ stormshield save I had to make. This gives me warlord point. The Boyz lose fearless and lose combat by like 10, by he rolls snake eyes for leadership and never takes any sort of casualties from leadership this game. The huge blob gets stuck in combat.
His turn, his jet packs come in and shoot and do nearly nothing at Khan's command squad.
In combat, he kills everything except an Iron Priest on the right side of the board, on the left side I hit and run towards his table edge and I get linebreaker.
The game ends on turn 2. He was a fairly slow player playing an incredibly time intensive army, and we only had 2 hour rounds with a 10 minute setup. It was unfortunate we didn't get to finish the full game, but I felt I would of been fine going forward. He wins the primary Purge the Alien, for 4 points. I win Maelstrom for 4 points, and I have first blood, linebreaker, and warlord for a 7-4 Victory to the White Scars.
GAME TWO VERSUS ELDAR WITH A LYNX
Primary: 4pts, 6 objective the scouring, Maelstrom: 4pts, and tertiary. First blood is replaced with "Big Game Hunter", whoever kills the most expensive unit gets the point.
He is playing a pretty nasty Eldar list with 2 squads of jetbikes with 2 farseers, an old school Lynx, a squad of Dark Reapers, and a few guardians, dire avengers, striking scorpions, and warp spiders. The game is hammer and anvil, he wins the roll off to go first and decides let me go first. I'm not sure why everyone is wanting to go second, but I'll take it! He will be surprised how fast bikes are. He infiltrates a squad of striking scorpions in my deployment zone, and I leave back a squad to deal with them. ]
I deploy as far forward as I can, then scout forward 12 inches, then after he fails to seize, I move up another 12 inches. I am practically in his face, despite the long table edge.
I am able to kill one squad of jetbikes with the non warlord Farseer in it, a handful of dire avengers and guardians. His shrouded striking scorpions don't take any casualties.
In the following Eldar turn, his strength D lynx kills half of my Wolf Lord led command squad, deals a wound to an attack bike. His shooting and psychic powers kill my two Iron Priests and deal another 3 wounds to a second command squad. Ouch! I lose close to 500 points of units this turn.
On my next turn, I move up and Khan breaks off by himself, and kills the guardians. The Wolf Lord and his remaining Command Squad head straight for the Lynx. Everyone else takes shots as the Dark Reapers and Dire Avengers, striking scorpions and only kill a handful. My two multi-melta attack bikes, grav guns, and Krak Grenades deal 2 hull points to the Lynx. The Wolf Lord makes the charge, the Lynx does not make it's Eldar holofield saves.
The Wolf Lord dies to a strength 10 explosion, failing his 3+ invulnerable save. COME ON WOLF LORD. All of my Space Wolves are now dead at this point.
He fails his reserves for the Warp Spiders. His remaining farseer casts Vortex of Doom at Khan, but he survives with his Iron Halo, and he decides to just chill in the Vortex. Khan eventually dies to scatter lasers.
He fails to do any other significant damage with his few guys left. On my turn I kill everything except his Warp Spiders (who were in reserve) and I hop onto every single objective. I win with Max Points, 4 primary, 4 secondary, warlord, linebreaker, and Big Game Hunter (for the Lynx). This was a brutal game, everything hit hard and fast. We both took hundreds of points of damage in the first volley. My list had a very strong
CC element though, and his did not and I was able to clean things up with generalists marines.
GAME THREE VS ELDAR CHEESE
Primary 4pts: Crusade
Secondary 4 pts: Maelstrom, first blood, warlord, linebreaker.
He is playing a Plasma Obliterator manned with Dark Reapers with crack shot and ignore jink to double the amount of templates he can throw. He wounds me on 2's and ignores my jink. He also has 4 squads of scatterbikes, a farseer on bike, a squad of wraithguard with D cannons joined by a Dark Eldar webway character, and a sword and board wraithknight, who he was bragging killed two squads of deathwing knights, two landraiders, and a chaplain by itself round 2. This game is to decide who wins the tournament, and I would like to avenge my fallen Dark Angel comrades. I win the roll off to go first FINALLY(despite my opponents always giving me first turn), and decide to go first with dawn of war deployment. We have some fun banter about cheese and whine, and get ready to play.
He null deploys all of his bikes so I can't scout up and shoot them. His
AV 14 Plasma Obliterator with a voidshield is complete immune to Grav. All I have is 3 multi-melta attack bikes and s10 thunderwolves. He deploys his WK as far back as he can (the duct tape is the real table edge).
Once again, the opponent under estimates just how far max deployment + scout + 12 inch move can be. Despite him deploying on his table edge, I have 3 squads in range of his Wraithknight, and all 3 multi-meltas are in melta range of the Plasma Obliterator. All 3 multi meltas hit, one kills the voidshield, one does a glance, and one does a penetrating hit, I roll a 3. AP1 brings this to a 5, and I blow up the only emplaced weapon on the structure. WOW, holy COW. If he had first turn, or I failed to do anything to that Plasma Obliterator, he would of killed an entire squad a turn. Two command squads and one troop squad unleash 33 Grav Shots and I kill the Wraith Knight in a single shooting phase before it can even move. I love it!
On his turn, his Dark Reapers shoot and kill a multi-melta attack bike and that is it. On my turn, I finish off his Obliterator with a volley of s10 AP1 servo harness attacks and blow it up Catastrophically, dealing 14 s6 wounds to the Dark Reapers inside and killing them.
At this point he is understandably pretty upset and I didn't want to take too many pictures to seem like I was rubbing it in. All his reserves come and he turbo boosts to get away from my bikes, and fails to do much with his webway wraithguard. In the end I hunt everyone down and kill them as per Khan's fluff.
So, the cheesiest army at the tournament who steam rolled other people got steam rolled in return. This game, the dice went well in my favor getting first turn and immediately stopping the Plasma Obliterator before it could shoot and it quickly became a blood bath and his fragile jetbikes had to come in from reserve and either kill part of a squad, and die to close combat, or turboboost away and try to capture maelstrom objectives and not be charged (but inevitably falling to grav guns). There was one other 3-0 player, and we split the 1st place winnings.
The new Space Marine codex is very strong. I have won multiple tournaments with the old book, and taking triple command squads (the best unit in the book by far, in my opinion) just makes it that much more insane. I knew I was going to be playing AP3 weapons and blast templates, and I loved the Space Wolf allies. The Wolf Lord killed huge targets every game, but died to s10 stuff. I will have to double check for an eternal warrior relic, because nothing else would of scratched him in any of my games. 2+ Iron Priests make a joke of Dark Reapers and small arms fire, and kept my Grav Guns alive (despite them dying every single game and not killing a single thing, unlike the Wolf Lord). I wouldn't of changed much about the list, I think it is pretty disgusting.