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Team ATL had shrunk for this tournament, just Player-A and myself.

I brought my Demons:

Herald of Khorne w/unholy Strength, chariot
Herald of Khorne w/chariot
Herald of Khorne w/chariot
Herald of Khorne w/chariot
2 Bloodcrushers
2 Bloodcrushers
2 Bloodcrushers
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt + Changling
Soul Grinder
Soul Grinder w/Phlegm
Soul Grinder w/Phlegm

For tournament purposes the chariot with unholy strength was my general.

A brought (roughly)
Lash Prince w/wings
Lash Prince w/wings
8 Berserkers w/fist champ in Rhino w/2 bolters
8 Berserkers w/fist champ in Rhino w/2 bolters
8 Plague Marines w/fist champ + plasma guns in Rhino w/2 bolters
8 Plague Marines w/fist champ + plasma guns in Rhino w/2 bolters
2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators
Defiler w/heavy flamer and CC arm

The Field:

The tourney had a fairly small attendance, not more than a dozen folks. I noticed primarily space marine and guard players, though there was also an Ork and a Nid.

The Missions:

No soft scores, and the missions straight from the 5th edition book. They had the RTT style win=15, tie = 9, loss =5, up to +3/-2 available on each mission.

Game #1:

I can't tell you precisely what the guy's army list was, as it was difficult to memorize, but the thrust was that it was an all-infantry guard force. They had close order drill, sharp shooters and cameloline armor. They had the usual IG morale improving items, and a generous dollop of heavy weaponry, at least 4 lascannons, 3 meltas, 10 plasma guns, 3 heavy bolters, etc. They also had an inquisitor lord and a guargantuan retinue, and a Callidus assassin.

The mission: Loot counters, w/corner deployment

My assessment: IG with no tanks won't be able to keep my army away, if I roll in the hard half of my army he's finished. Bloodcrushers and Herald will go through these infantry units like a Terminator through Necrons.

Anyway, he spends a ludicrous amount of time deploying (A was on the bottom of 2 when we finally started up), and I soon find out why. He's got his guys in X formation, so they all give each other cover saves. Further, any unit that gets serious fire will go to ground, turning these pseudo-space marines into pseudo-terminators. He also maintains that with them interlocking in this manner, you can't charge just one of the units, you have to multi-charge them. He also shoots his inquisitor squad when someone deep strikes close by, despite the squad being locked in combat, moves units around despite their being locked in combat in order to contest an objective. (Soul grinder pounces on unit. He piles in around it. Next round he does so again, orbiting it for several round until he can bring his unit closer to the objective.) He wants to end the game on turn 4, then proposes that it continue when he realizes he's losing at that time, then reverts to the turn 4 scoring state when the actual game end is worse for him. In short, he is either selectively ignorant of the rules, or simply cheats. The game leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I win, 17-5

A's game:

A is up against a Space Marine army (painted as confederates), and pulls out a win. He apparently has an excellent game.

Game #2:

My opponent had horde Tyranids. By rough memory the list was:

Flying tyrant w/devourers, warp field
sniperfex
sniperfex
6 warriors w/template guns + 1 venom cannon + scything talons
Broodlord w/retinue
4 units of hormagaunts (w/upgrades)
2 unit of gaunts w/upgrades
3 Zoanthropes w/warp blast, synapse

The mission: Dawn of War, one objective each

My assessment:

With the exception of his tyrant, or some zoey's blasting my grinders, I don't think he's got anything that'll make it's points back. I ought to be able to just drop in brainlessly in his face and take his charges, then kill my way through. Towards the end I'll drop a pink horror unit on my objective, and make sure to contest his with something.

The game:

The game goes my way in the dice, though it's a bit of a mismatch from the get-go. He just can't handle the chariots/crushers, and the grinders come in once the MC's are tied up. With my guys hitting on 3's and killing on 2's, and fearless saves doubling the wounds, his gaunts just get ripped through too quick. I'm able to kill his last model at the end of turn 5. Throughout he remains polite and interested in the game, trying hard despite some crushingly bad luck. As a result, I'm able to enjoy this game thoroughly, despite the luck wringing the uncertainty out of it.

A's game #2:

A faces off with a Chaos Space Marine army which has no cult troops, just csm's and havocs and a Lord. It actually gets kind of dicy towards the end, but A is able to keep his own objective (the enemy never made any kind of attempt at it), and contest his foe's objective with a berserker squad. If the game had gone one more round the enemy had a good shot at taking him off that objective and tying up the game.

Game #3:

Vs. Player A.

The mission:

Kill Points, w/long table edge deployment:

My assessment: I'm up a creek, I've got 19 units and he's got like 12, and 4 of those are big SM units that I'm not going to be able to slaughter without losing alot. Plus, Lash.

The game: It goes about like you'd think, he ends up killing 15 units, while I get 8. Some interesting luck goes both ways, but ultimately I just can't win this kind of mission vs. a good CSM list. Troubling.

A gets first place, and I get second.

Was this by chance at D*con last weekend?

He also maintains that with them interlocking in this manner, you can't charge just one of the units, you have to multi-charge them.

Yeah as you say he is either mis-informed or a cheater. In 4ed, what he says is true enough, but in 5ed you can move within 1" of an enemy you are not charging, you just cannot be in base to base (pg34).

Always enjoy your batreps, even if they are a bit spartan.

@Teek:

Nah, this was at Dicehead this saturday

@Winterman:

Sorry about the brevity, it was difficult to be enthusiastic in reporting this tourney. My first game was vs. a cheater, my second had my most freakish streak of good luck ever, and my last was vs. a fellow Warfan member, who I've played 2 dozen times.


The game vs. Player-A was actually sort of interesting.

He deployed with his units in their Rhinos, and his Princes standing behind the wall and the Defiler. It went Zerker, Plague, Defiler, Plague Zerker. Off to the right he stood his oblits. I basically had a choice of 3 strategies.

The first was to land my Pink Horrors and Soul Grinders at a distance and fire on the Rhinos. If I could drop a few of them I'd be up on Kill Points, and with Crushers and Heralds landing I could try and keep that edge through the game. I believe that this approach would have failed in the face of his Obliterators and Lashers pulling my units together and templating them, and also I thought that the Smoke would protect his Rhinos from my fire.

The next was to land my Heralds and Bloodcrushers, and heck, even the Grinders, right up close and run right into his grill. That would also certainly have resulted in a huge bloodbath, but I thought that he could hold his own in that (berserker charges and plague marine rapid fire, combined with walls of Rhinos to seperate my forces and Lashes. My follow-up, dogs and Pink Horrors, didn't strike me as sufficient to skirmish with his obliterators.

What I ended up going with was dropping the Horrors and Grinders and opening fire on the Obliterators. If I could kill one or two of those units I figured he'd only be able to charge the Pink Horror units that he lashed, and would likely end up with a multi-charge, killing a unit and leaving another alive. I'd counter by running in another pink horror unit, touching very few of his guys, while landing the counterattack wing. I also dropped a Soul Grinder on his other flank (the one with no template gun), with designs on crunching any rhinos he left behind.

My shooting was entirely ineffective, and a Grinder landed in Terrain, immobilizing itself. The shooting didn't even wound an obliterator, and he countered by flaming my pink horrors and double charging with his berserkers, while sending his other berserkers over to fight the Grinder. On my next turn I dropped my assault force, though I lost one to scatter and another went back to the warp, and prepared to take a Berserker charge. The Horrors miraculously stuck another round though. He killed yet more pink horrors next round, and lashed away two Herald/Crusher units, but the remainder charged and killed his oblits. I got my Soul Grinder into his other Berserker unit, and Grinders killed off all the Berserkers but got immobilized in the process. I didn't have a way to threaten his Defiler, and it killed a Herald and a pair of Crushers. Ultimately I wasn't able to get his plagues out of the Rhinos.

At game's end I had 3 immobilized Soul Grinders, and a pair of Blood Crushers. He had 2 Rhinos (one immobilized), a Defiler and 2 squads of Plague Marines (one had one casualty). It was a good game, but fairly predictable in its outcome. I think he's got an edge in annihilation missions, I've got one in the fortress missions, and it's an even game in the d3+2 objective missions.

Very nice breakdown of the last game. Much appreciated.

Do you think the MSU approach leaves you in a hole in Annihilation missions? At first glance it sure seems like most armies would have a field day with that many units.

It's not quite as big of a drawback as it appears, as most of the units are hard to extract the points from, but the Hounds and Pink Horrors certainly give up their points easily.

My general tactic in these missions is to go for the blitz, dropping all 10 hard units in their face. If they are doing well I drop the hounds/horrors far from the fray, and just lurk around.

The only reason this has a good chance at working is the freakish power of the Khornate units. It isn't uncommon for a pair of bloodcrushers to kill 2 ten man Marine squads and a Rhino. I've seen Heralds take charges from Hive Tyrant + Tyrant Guard combos and held them up for 3 turns of fighting. Soulgrinders are also notoriously hard to kill.

Obviously the Lash nixes this plan, so I have a lot of trouble in annihilation missions vs. CSM.

These defects are, to my mind, more than made up for by the advantages that MSU brings in non annihilation missions. I confess though, that recently I've been thinking about dropping the 15 dogs for 6 more crushers, which would help out alot with the kill points missions.

Glad those confederats got a good Whippin. Poetic justice.