On Saturday I made the trek up to Danger Planet in
MA to take part in their inaugural 5th edition tournament. I’ve taken different army lists to the last five tournaments there and continuing that trend I decided on a Witch Hunters list. My 1,500pt list comprised the following:
HQ
*
St. Celestine
* Inquisitor Lord with familiar and 2 penitents (Lord has shotgun, psychic hood and divine pronouncement)
Elites
* Callidus Assassin
Troops
* 10 Sisters with 2 flamers, superior with book and eviscerator in a rhino
* 10 Sisters with 2 flamers, superior with book and eviscerator
* 10 Sisters with meltagun and storm bolter, superior with book and power sword
FA
* 5 Seraphim with 2 hand flamers, superior with book and eviscerator
Heavy
* 2 Exorcists with extra armour and smoke
* Immolator with extra armour and smoke
7 faith points and 3 scoring units
Game 1 was against Patrick with his Dark Angels, playing seize ground with a battle line set up.
I won the initial roll and decided to take the first turn. Patrick had 6 scoring units and I wanted to start thinning these down as early as possible. His army comprised the following:
Sammael on a speeder
L/R Crusader with 5 Deathwing terminators inside
Tac squad (split into combat squads) with a rhino
6 man bike squad (outflanking)
6 man bike squad plus attack bike (split into 3 combat squads)
Patrick used his scout moves to advance his bike combat squads forward and in the first turn I removed the attack bike and two of the three bikes which were facing my left with the two exorcists. My Immolator and Rhino squad moved forward on the right, with the seraphim and Celestine safely tucked behind them. Patrick’s first turn was not too bad with the loss of a seraphim and the immolator being immobilized by a plasma cannon shot from a unit to the far right who were sitting right next to an objective.
My assassin arrived in turn 2 and killed 4 of the 5 marines by the objective on the left. Fortunately the surviving marine was perfectly framed by a window and was obliterated by an exorcist in the following round. Celestine and the Seraphim went after the bikes on the right to draw the outflanking bikes to that side (away from my tanks) and over the next couple of turns killed 7 out of 9 bikers for the loss of the Seraphim and Celestine (who capped off two failed faith rolls with a failed
Ld test to stay dead!). My sisters in the rhino moved to the building on the far right and would eventually assault and win the combat against the 5 marines there.
Luckily for me the Land Raider stayed at combat speed which delayed the arrival of the terminators until turn 3. They assaulted the 10 strong sister squad holding the centre objective and over the course of 3 full turns would be completely wiped out for the loss of 4 sisters only. Sammael and the Land Raider would prove to be immune to all of my shooting (1 melta and 2 exorcists) and Sammael ended the game parked next to my left-most objective.
The game ended on turn 6 with my sisters in charge of just 1 objective with the other being contested. The crusader was a cruising speed move from contesting it. The sisters who had emerged victorious over the deathwing were so excited to have won the combat they forgot to consolidate within 3” of the objective to their front – oops!
It was a real bloody game, with Celestine and the Seraphim failing mightily to impress. I picked up 15 points for the win plus a bonus for holding one objective and another for killing Patrick’s most expensive unit.
Game 2 was against Fred and his Daemons, fighting an annihilation mission with dawn of war deployment.
Winning the roll again I gave Fred the first turn and set up Celestine and two sisters squads on foot. Fred had 10 kill points on offer to my 12 and had:
Bloodthirster
3 Flamers x 2
9 Horrors with Changeling
8 Horrors
10 Plaguebearers with icon x 2
4 fiends of slaanesh
Daemon prince of Tzeentch
Daemon prince of nurgle
Fred asked for and got his primary choice, and the bloodthirster, 9 horrors, nurgle prince, 10 plaguebearers and the fiends dropped in. Only the prince misshaped and ended up in the far corner of the battlefield.
Fred’s deployment forced me into a refused flank situation and my army moved on from the right side of the board to target the only unit that was there – the plaguebearers. Celestine was close enough to charge them and at the end of my shooting and assault there was one daemon left. Unfortunately it was the icon bearer…
Only one unit came down in Fred’s second turn – the Tzeentch Prince. It fired its bolt of change at the closest exorcist but was defeated by a large tank trap in front of the tank. I had moved my left-most sisters squad to the right to try and avoid a charge by the fiends but a maximum fleet and difficult terrain roll saw them caught and wiped out. Celestine finished the last plaguebearer while the prince was wiped out by bolter and exorcist fire.
The rest of Fred’s army came down in the third turn while my own force continued to dominate the right side of the board. Celestine chopped up most of a Horror squad but got pulverized by the Bloodthirster (she failed her act of faith to have a 2+
inv save, but at least passed the test to come back). Some brave deep strikes saw flamers appear in my back lines and kill the Inquisitor and his retinue outright only to have the squads die to bolter fire.
My assassin appeared next to the other large Horror unit and did a great job killing them before going after the last plaguebearers (it would end the game in combat with them). The Exorcists killed the Bloodthirster and the fiends were finally killed in close combat by another sisters squad and the remnants of the seraphim. Celestine turned up towards the end and in heroic fashion dropped next to the Nurgle prince and would end the game in combat with the monster.
At the end of the game Fred only had the Nurgle prince and part of a plaguebearer squad left and I had picked up a win with 2 bonus points (most expensive character and most expensive unit).
On to round 3 where I would be facing Grahams Nidzilla list in a Capture and Control scenario with a spearhead deployment.
Graham won the roll and chose to go first, giving me the deployment zone with the least amount of terrain though there was a fantastic kill zone I could cover by placing my two tanks as far back as possible. It was going to be tough to claim his objective as I had no outflanking forces so I determined to hold the Immolator, Rhino squad and sisters squad in reserve to make a dash for it from turn 2, hopefully distracting the monsters from closing with my own objective.
Graham set everything up as close as allowed with the exception of his two troops choices who remained spread out on the objective. Graham was in no hurry to play quickly and seemed happy to play for a draw from the outset (both of which would cost him later):
Combat Tyrant with wings
Dakka Tyrant and 2 guard
3 Dakkafexes
2 Gunfexes
3 Zoanthropes
10 upgraded stealers
10 or so hormagaunts
For the first two turns none of Graham’s guns were in range and I was able to drop one Dakkafex and badly wound another with the Exorcists. The sisters squads in reserve turned up in turn 2 and they arrived on the far edge of my table and started towards the objective. To take some heat off them Celestine and the Seraphim broke cover to set up a charge on the flank of Grahams march towards my deployment zone.
Lots of guns fired at Celestine and when the smoke cleared she had taken a wound and 3 of the 5 seraphim were dead, including the superior. The winged tyrant was heading back to head off my assaulting force while the tyranid troops just hung around not doing much. The big guns were in range of my tanks but did no damage to my tanks, giving me another salvo of
2d6 missiles which would drop another monster.
Turns 3 and 4 were important for me. Celestine and the Seraphim got a joint charge against a dakkafex and zoanthrope and as hoped didn’t kill them. My Immolator arrived and rushed up behind the advancing sisters squads who were going right for the winged tyrant. The assassin turned up and routed all of the hormagaunts (and would die to stealers in round 4). The Seraphim with Celestine got smashed by the Tyrant plus guard but crucially Celestine passed her armour saves (I had previously made her fearless expecting this to happen) which allowed her to hit and run towards Graham’s objective. The winged tyrant failed to stop the rhino in close combat which continued its push towards the objective, the girls on foot running nearby.
By the start of turn 5 Celestine was now in the backfield inviting a charge from the Stealers (but this would take them away from the objective they were holding) and I had lost the gun off one Exorcist. The monsters were far too far away from my own objective and when the 15 minute warning was called it was clear we would not get to turn 6. The stealers charged Celestine with the aim of consolidating back on the objective and the winged tyrant finally killed the rhino. The dice were rolled and Celestine took 13 wounding hits, and she came through like the golden girl she is by failing only one save! She hit and ran onto the enemy objective, giving me the win. For completeness my running sisters squad bypassed the tyrant and got within 3” of the objective as well with a 6” run. To add insult to injury my immolator tank shocked the winged tyrant who tried and failed a death or glory attack. Squish
Once painting, sportsmanship and composition scores were factored in I ended up with first place. Mannahnin and Gilgamesh (the other Cold Steel Mercs at the tournament) came 3rd and 4th. As always, Danger Planet ran a great tournament and the terrain was up to its usual excellent standard. Considering this was their first 5th edition event there were very few hiccups and I think everyone had a good time.
Bretonnians 
