Finished a tournament this Saturday, thought I might share a little of what I happened and hopefully contribute to rebuilding the mighty Dakka library.
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Setup was 2000 points, with anything in print legal, so <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
ffice:smarttags" /><st1:place><st1:City>VDR</st1:City>, <st1:State>IA</st1:State></st1:place>, etc. (no warmachines). Basic missions (no recon) all at gamma level.
There were 18 armies there, rough breakdown as follows:
4 Marine (1 Dark angels, 1 blood angels, 1 Space Wolves, 1 unknown)
2 Chaos (1 with loads of demons, 1 more balanced)
2 Tau (including me)
2 IG (1 normal, 1 armored company)
2 Dark Eldar
1 Eldar
1 Tyranid
Not sure what the rest were, but I know I didn't see any Orks, Necrons, WH or DH.
Terrain was varied on the tables. The good part was all tables had a little sheet posted that described each piece of terrain's function. The bad part was that some boards had VERY little terrain (or unbalanced terrain), while others were very heavy with it.
My list was as follows:
1 Shas'el with TL Plasma/Fusion/HW Multi
1 Bodyguard with same
1 Shas'el with TL Plasma/Fusion/HW Multi
1 Bodyguard with same
2 Deathrain suits with target locks
6 Stealth
6 Stealth
10 Firewarriors
10 Firewarriors
10 Firewarriors
18 Kroot
18 Kroot
16 Kroot
3 Railheads, all with Burst Cannons, Decoy, Disruption, Missile pods
First game was against IG. Wasn't sure exactly what he had, but it looked like lots of foot troops, so after winning the strat roll, I got to choose mission, and I chose cleanse. Yeah, he had a lot of guys. Basically (not all the wargear and such):
Command squad with 2 plasma guns, medic
3 Lascannon squad
3 Missile Launcher squad
3 Heavy Bolter Squad
2 Storm trooper squads with plasma, power swords
2 Identical platoons, with
2 Plasma guns and medic command squads
5 squads with missile launchers and grenade launchers (that 110 guys right there!)
1 Hellhound
1 Leman Russ with lascannon sponson
Think that was it. I won the roll to pick quarters, so had a more thorough look over the terrain. Some scattered level 1 crates and barrels around the middle, some level 2 +4 save rocks templates on one short board half, and pretty much nothing on the other board half. I took a heavily rock-templated quarter, so he got a quarter with 1 rock template (and a tiny forest that was his home corner of the board....really helpful).
Apparently, the people in my area only play with lvl 1 (blocks no line of sight) and 3 (blocks all line of sight), so this level 2 stuff threw me off a bit. My incomplete understanding was that it blocked LOS to non-vehicles. It came to pass, however, that the tourny had it block LOS from troops to troops, but from vehicle to troop it was as if it wasn't there. Don't know how normal that is, but suddenly my crisis suits are vulnerable to any tank if no level 3 terrain is handy.
He set his LR up front 6" from center to push me back, but then deployed his army throughout his whole quarter....I think he would have been better served pushing them all to the front. As it was, the game went pretty easily for me. Stealth suits infiltrated on my adjacent short board edge, hopped along to some rock cover, and rolled up the whole side, finally cutting across the center of the board to contest the opposite quarter. My tanks killed his LR quickly, and slowly submunitioned his troops, starting at the front and working back, just out of range of most of his weapons due to the disruption pods. He must have failed 5-6 times to shoot at them, and the 2 times he did hit he failed to pen the armor. Ended up shooting most of his missiles at the firewarriors and kroot scattered about...killing most of them, but not for much gain. Last turn, I had troops in both adjacent quarters, he had 1 10 man squad contesting 1 of the quarters. Took a submunition, down to five, passed leadership, so I only got the 1 quarter in the end. I killed about 1200 points of his troops, and got the additional 500 for the quarter. He killed a 16 kroot squad, a 10 firewarrior squad and the 2 deathrains for 324 points. Picked away at all the other kroot and firewarrior squads, but not enough to get them under half.
So, 1-0 crushing victory.
Game 2
Seek and Destroy vs Armored company
Had to ask a lot of questions on this one, as I had only read about armored company, and that was from an older version (lucky glances and such). He had 5 leman russes, 1 demolisher, and two basilisks. The board, while neat looking, was one of the most unbalanced at the event. Virtually all the terrain was on 1 board half, set up as a trench line. Large, lvl 3 dragon's teeth were on each flank, with trench lines and wire covered the center. The trenches were out of the deployment zone, but were still definately on the one board half. I won the roll, and stuck him in the open, with all my kroot in the trenches and hammerheads hidden behind the dragon's teeth. All the suits were reserved to deepstrike. He set up with a basilisk in eash corner, with a wall of three tanks in front blocking LOS. They all LOOKED like leman russes (except the demolisher) so I asked to make sure they weren't vanquishers of annihilators or any things like that. He said no...which, while true, wasn't really the whole story....
I won turn 1, drifted out, shot and killed his commander's tank. Felt there was no way I could lose this fight....leman russes suck at anti tank. Then he fired AT rounds, and all his tanks had ace gunners. Apparently, these things shoot 72", roll 2d6 for penetration, and ace gunner lets him reroll misses or 1s, not sure (rolls based off of BS for AT rounds). 1 hammerhead dies on a glance 6. 1 loses its weapon. The third is stunned, in the open, by the basilisk. Suddenly, it looks pretty grim. I was a little upset he didn't mention any of this while I was asking all the other questions, but I guess I only asked what kinds of tanks they were, not if they had any special features.
Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. All my deepstrikers come in (except 1 stealth squad). The already dead tank and demolisher are on 1 flank (with LOS to the stunned hammerhead), so I strike them all on the other corner with all health vehicles. He had moved his tanks up a few inches on his turn for some reason, so there was a little space to the sides of the basilisk and up towards the LRs backs, so I struck a stealth squad there, surrounded by steal and the board edge. Hit. I drop a command squad in front of the middle russ, 2" away. Hit. Next command squad in front of the third tank. Drifts away 5", but lands ok. The deathrain set up to land next to the stealth suits. Drift off the board. Well, overall I can't complain. The stealth suits shoot the LR from behind and kill it. The command squad fusion blast the middle LR and kills it. The other command squad can't kill the third LR, not within the 6" for the extra pen dice. Darn. I moved all my kroot towards the other corner too, I guess. I figured if any of them got close enough, we could assault or shoot rear/side armor.....
His turn, he missed the stunned hammerhead, killed one command squad, and that was it.
My turn, my other stealth suits arrive. It worked so well on the one flank, so I try to drop them in the same little gap on the other corner. Hit. They blast the LR in front of them (2 weps destroyed, immobilized), while the hammerhead takes out the demolisher. On the other side, the other LR is killed...not sure how, or why the basilisk survived, but it did.
He attempts to kill my lone stealth suit, hoping to allow his basilisk to shoot freely behind the wreackage for the rest of the game. The basilisk on the far corner shoots, and drifts off the table, so the other one has to pivot and shoot point blank at the stealths in front of him. Hit them all, kills all but 1. Passes morale.
My turn. Stealth passes all on your own, hops around the basilisk's flank, and get 2 pens and a glance! Stealths and comand squad on other side finish off the basilisk, he concedes.
Ugh. Now I understand why no one likes fighting armored company. I thanked him for the game and letting me borrow his scatter die, and went to lunch at 2-0. Killed 2000 points of his stuff, had 1460 survive for bonus VPs, so...did pretty well. Victorious Slaughter.
Game 3
Biel-Tan Eldar.
Winners played against winners, so the quality of my opponent should be getting better. It did. Great player and nice guy, this game was a blast.
His list (again, roughly)
Avatar
2 death jesters with bright lances
19 guardians
6 warp spiders
2 vypers with starcannons spirit stones, upgrade where you roll 2 dice for damage rolls (oh what a pain that is....)
2 falcons with pulse cannon, star cannon, spirit stones and 2 dice thing
wave serpent with missile launcher, holofield (? Max strength 8 on pen rolls) spirit stones
9 scorpians with exarch with claw (in wave serpent)
4 banshees and exarch (in falcon)
5 dark reapers and exarch
1 wraithlord with starcannon
5 swooping hawks with exarch
Played on same table as my first game. I won mission and corners, so I picked the same and stuck him in the open. First turn was night, so he had me go first (won the roll).
What a fight. He moved forward on his turn with everything but the reapers, and I got everything but 1 stealth squad on my turn deepstriking on turn 2 (kroot had infiltrated all over to contest corners/harrass with fire, all the suits deepstruck because of no level 3 terrain....his vehicles would just pick them off). Because he moved forward, I had a huge area in his backfiled to strike into, and it went beautifully. Downed the wave serpent, killed the vypers, killed the dark reapers, shook a falcon....looked very good.
And then he slowly started clawing his way back. Tied up some of my suits in melee with his warp spiders, eventually fleeted the guardians enough to tie up the deathrains, who won combat with them 4 times in a row but never broke them. His avatar charged an HQ squad (drifted a long way off course), took 3 wounds but killed them, then ran along (along with the scorp exarch, the only survivor) to finish the suits stuck in close combat with spiders and guardians. What a mess.
In the end, I had left:
2 Hammerhead (1 missing its gun)
2 Kroot squads over half
1 deathrain suit broken and running away (finally lost combat, but escaped the guardians' evil clutches!)
So, he earned 1548 VPs
He had:
1 Falcon
1 Scorp exarch
2 Banshees
2 Hawks
13 Guardians
Both death jesters
Avatar with 1 wound
I earned 1133 VPs for kills.
I couldn't finish off his squads, but I did manage to get most under 50%. I claimed 1 quarter with some kroot, so earned 500 VPs there, forcing a draw. 2-0-1
Game 4
Cleanse vs Eldar
Yup....same opponent. We were in the top group based on our previous wins and such, and ended up drawing each other again. Same mission, no night fight, table was set up almost like a peace sign, terrain ran down the middle of the board to the center, then split to the two opposite corners. I won the roll for first turn, and it was a tough call. I decided to go first, so I could shoot at his falcons with my tanks while they didn't get the glancing skimmers benefit. Killed one of them, so maybe it was worth it.
Game proceeded much like the last one, with lots of back and forth. He got last turn though, and that helped immensly. Got to contest one corner I had with his vypers, and managed, on a very tough angle (between 2 lvl three templates) to get a shot at my kroot hiding in the other corner, killing 2 to put them under half strength so his stunned falcon could claim it.
I had left all three hammerheads, both deathrains and 10 firewarriors. He had his reapers, his vypers, 1 wound wraithlord, unwounded avatar, 1 stunned falcon. I killed 1148 points of stuff, he killed 1278 of mine. He got the quarter this time, and that gave him the minor victory, and 2nd place.
With 2-1-1, I ended up around 5th or 6th out of 18. Not bad, but I hoped to do better. Thoughts:
2000 points, especially with my list, is a lot of stuff. My eldar opponent and I (though me slightly more) both had occasional lapses, forgetting to move warp spiders, scorpian charges, suit jumps, etc. I've rarely played above 1500, and usually with about 60 models (I think this list had 101?). Definately something you need to practice a with ahead of time, if you're not used to it.
I didn't play marines at all. My two command squads didn't do much....I might have been too impatient. With their short range, if the enemy isn't coming to you, they either sit around and do nothing (1st game versus IG) or risk it all on deepstriking....risky deepstriking to get close enough to hit something.
Stealth suits are tough, too. Great most of the time, but you get them against someone fast (eldar with vypers, falcons, etc) and you have a tough time getting them close enough to something they can hurt without letting some vehicle run you down and blast you with AP 2/3 weaponry.
Conversely, I was very pleased with my deathrain suits. I've never been a big fan of them, but in these games they were great. Range to shoot from cover and almost always have a target. Range and strength to deepstrike a little more safely and hit vehicles from the rear. Again, though, these may be skewed a bit by not facing any power armor.....I'd probably be talking differently if I faced Necrons and blood angels, but still....I may relook my list. More missile pods, less plasma and fusion? Maybe...
Kroot are outstanding. Claim quarters, harrass with fire, take some of the enemy's fire, then run and hide. Great.
Firewarriors didn't do much. I was hoping that they would at least provide some firepower from cover to help out...as it was, they did little. Devilfish squads would have been slightly more useful, but much more expensive....don't know if the tradeoff would be worth it.
Hammerheads were great as always. I'm thinking target locks may become a must have, and SMS systems would have been nice, too. Yup, now to figure out how to get the burst cannons off after I glued them on (doh!).
Wasn't a complete loss, however. In the middle of the first battle, the coordinator came up, said my models looked great, and I had been choosen for the best looking army. Got a $15 gift card out of it...not bad. My models aren't great...no highlighting of anything, just cleanly painted in bright, contrasting colors (royal blue and golden yellow). Of course, just having all my models painted, let alone with more than 3 colors, put me ahead of 80% of the people there...
Had my first experience with seeing lots of kid gamers. Didn't play any of them, as (I assume) they lost early on, so never got to my bracket. They had problems, but the adults seemed a bit rough on them, although I suppose they were trying to run a serious tournament, so when someone shows up with unpainted models, no army list, etc.....yeah.
First place went to a mech Tau player. Not sure what his list was....I saw
Commander (bodyguard?
Crisis suit (maybe two...they were by the commander)
2x6 stealth suits
3 hammerhead, 2 rail, 1 ion, lots of upgrades
2 firewarrior squads in devilfish
1 pathfinder squad
Seems a bit short...not sure what else he had.
That's about it for now, I think. Let me know what you think!
I obliterated em.
8-27-2 
0-1-0 
0-2-1 
18-24-5 