This past Saturday Danger Planet Games in Waltham,
MA, hosted their last
40K tournament of the year. It was a 1,750 point affair and as usual at Danger Planet there were painting, sportsmanship and composition scores on offer as well as battle points.
I took a slightly different Chaos list than normal and went with three distinct contingents; one unaligned, one of Khorne and one of Nurgle.
Daemon Princess: Wings, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Princess: Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Nurgle’s Rot (had 17 points left at the end so picked this power for a laugh)
8 Berserkers with a fist in a rhino x 2
7 Plague Marines with a fist and 2 melta guns in a rhino x 2
2 Obliterators x 2
Vindicator with Daemonic Possession
A few people had to drop out at the last minute but there was still 16 people in the event and quickly looking around at the start there seemed to be an awful lot of power armour in attendance!
Game 1 vs Nate (Chaos Marines, ended up 5th)
Nate had a twin Land Raider list that comprised of: Daemon Prince of Slaanesh (Warptime, Wings), 10 Berserkers with fist x 2 inside two Land Raiders, 10 Chaos Marines x 2 inside two rhinos (each squad had a champion and mix of special weapons) and 3 Terminators all with combi meltas.
The mission was seize ground (4 objectives) with Pitched Battle deployment. We both placed objectives fairly centrally on a board with an open-topped building in the middle, a few hills and some woods scattered around. I won the roll to pick quarters and I took it in order for the rhinos to move towards the centre and fire smoke. Nate deployed fairly far back from me with his rhinos and prince taking cover behind the Land Raiders.
Turn 1 happens and my rhinos all rush forwards, plague marines getting out of one so they can jump into the building (conveniently close to two objectives) in the second turn. My obliterators all line up shots on the closest Raider and all miss. Not a particularly auspicious start to the event
Nate has about as much luck as me with his shooting and the lascannon shots that hit my rhinos are deflected by the smoke. His army came forwards a little but stayed around 20” away from me. In my next turn I drive some rhinos further forwards and a squad of plague marines gets into the building. My Obliterators line up more shots on the Raiders and hit a couple of times but bounce off the armour. My Princesses have moved forwards a little but everything is way out of charge range so they just sort of hang out.
In Nates turn his terminators arrive and go after my Vindicator (which has thus far done nothing) but scatter wildly out of melta range. A squad of Berserkers and marine squad jump out to destroy a Berserker rhino and the Prince goes after a plague rhino near the central building but only succeeds in tearing off the weapon. Unfortunately for Nate his shooting does nothing to the Berserker rhino and so has to charge it with his squad of khorne boys, who do an admirable job of turning it into a crater and killing one of the guys inside. In my turn my Berserkers stumble through the dangerous ground (3 of them die!) and launch an attack on the 10 strong Berserkers along with the two Princesses. The better initiative on the charge and the two princesses mean I kill all of Nate’s marines for no loss while my other squad of Berserkers do the same to his unaligned unit. In one round of combat I’ve killed half his scoring units.
After that things start to go downhill for Nate. He succeeds in wiping out my large Berserker squad with his last one but they die in turn to plague marines and the khorne daemon prince. His Prince dies to plague marines and the Nurgle Princess in close combat but my princess dies to lascannon fire before she can jump on his terminators. My vindicator is killed after doing nothing and 2 obliterators wind up killing the 3 terminators over the course of the rest of the game. The game ends at the end of turn 5 and I hold one objective to Nate’s none (he’s contesting another I hold with a damaged rhino). At that point we grab the score sheets and realize there were bonus points to be had based on the number of held objectives. Oh well
I get a single bonus point for the objective and one for killing his general and most expensive unit. Nate gets those two as well but loses one for losing all his troops. Final score 18-6.
A quality game against a really fun opponent. We both had armies that wanted to get to grips with each other and as a result finished about 45 minutes ahead of everyone else, giving us lots of time for lunch!
Game 2 vs Brian (Orks, ended up 13th)
Brian had lots of Orks: Warboss on a bike, Warboss in Mega Armour with Mega Nobz in a truck, 12 boyz in a truck, 25 orks with sluggas x 3, 30 Orks with sluggas, 10 lootas and 10 kommandos (no Snikrot though).
The mission was capture and control with spearhead deployment. The board we were on was full of urban terrain which meant there were no real fire lanes and lots of semi-covered approaches everywhere, with a massive ruined building in the middle of the board. I won the deployment roll and again elected to go first to hopefully put a dent in the Orks before they got too close.
My rhinos start to move forwards so they can make a dash for the Ork objective (I’ve left one unit of plague marines to guard my objective in a nearby bunker) and my obliterators line up some cheeky shots on the truck with the Mega Nobz, killing it right away. Not much else happens. I realize I’ve put my Vindicator in charge range of the warboss and sure enough he comes bursting through the cover to smack the tank. The rest of the Orks on the board surge forwards, the unit in the truck disembarking to go after the plague marine rhino that had moved up on my left. In an awesome display Brian’s warboss misses the vindicator with all his attacks though he does kill the other one with his boyz.
My two Princesses double-team and kill the warboss and the plague marines kill all the Orks who blew up their truck. The two Berserkers continue to move forwards in their rhinos, waiting for a good time to get out. Brian’s Kommandos come on from the flank and another ork unit arrives and starts making their way towards the plague marines who are somewhat stuck out in the open on the left. The lootas go after an empty rhino but are defeated by the smoke. The rhino would spend the game tank shocking orks on it’s way to their objective. My vindicator kills three of the Mega Nobz leaving just one with the second Warboss and they promptly fail two morale checks!
Brian fails to kill the Berserker rhinos in combat and that, combined with the fleeing Mega Nobz, means I have the upper hand. The power of Berserkers is shown in turn 4 when I get the charge with two squads against 25 Orks. Resolving the Initiative 5 attacks first, I do 31 wounds to the Orks! Wow. I manage not to lose the Nurgle Princess but still lose a squad of Plague Marines to give Brian points for killing the most expensive unit, though unfortunately I’ve killed all his troops choices and the game ends with me in control of both objectives. I wind up with a 19:5 win.
The Warboss failure to kill the vindicator and the subsequent morale check failure on the second Warboss were the turning points here. Once both his characters were out of commission I could focus on moving forwards and killing orks without having to worry about huge numbers of power klaws.
Game 3 vs Dave (Black Templars, ended up 3rd)
Nate had demolished a couple of opponents on his way to round 3 and had the following: Chaplain with large squad of
BTs, Emperors Champion with large squad of
BTs, lascannon/plasma squad, plasma cannon/plasma gun squad, 10
BTs in a rhino, speeder tornado, predator annihilator, vindicator and a dreadnought with assault cannon.
This was a kill point mission with the dawn of war setup. We were playing on an awesome swamp board with a fair few trees. Kill points are not good for me with all the cheap rhinos and if I wanted to get close I was going to have to put the rhinos in harms way. Dave won the roll for deployment and took it, placing the plasma cannon squad in a wood near his board edge and the champion’s squad right up on the halfway point. I placed a squad of Berserkers and their rhino with the Khorne princess as close to the
BT squad with the champion as I could.
Dave’s army rolled on and as expected no-one could see anything. The
BT squad with the champion moved forwards slightly but took care to stay out of charge range of potentially dis-embarking berserkers. In my turn I split my army in two and while the vindicator and a plague and khorne rhino rushed up the right the obliterators and second plague rhino focused on the left along with the Nurgle princess. The searchlights on my Berserker rhino illuminated the Champion’s unit and by the time the smoke had settled 4 plasma cannons and some disembarked plague marines had reduced that unit size to 3 plus the champion.
Dave’s champion gamely charged the plague marines while the rest of his army did very little with his shooting, though the assault cannon on the speeder knocked two wounds off the Nurgle princess. Thanks to T5 and blight grenades the Champion’s charge only killed a couple of plague marines and in my second turn the
BTs would all die to Berserker charge. My rhinos on the left continued their mad dash forwards while the vindicator killed a few
BTs with the chaplain. My Princesses both jumped towards the centre of the board to try and get in on the action in turn 3.
The Black Templar fire continued to be ineffective in turn three (I lost only one obliterator to heavy weapons fire) and in return I dropped more of the large squad and set up a charge on the chaplains unit with a squad of plague marines and the Nurgle princess. Fresh from killing the Emperors Champion my other plague marine unit and the Berserkers on the right got back in their rhinos and surged towards the units on the left of the board. The khorne princess did just about everything to the dreadnought in combat except kill it while the chaplain made commendable progress through my plague marines (though his buddies did a lot less well against the princess). By turn 4 the plague marines on the left had made it into combat with the lascannon
BT squad (and would kill the last of them in turn 6 with only the champion surviving). The Berserkers on the right along with the Khorne princess killed the plasma cannon marines and then absorbed the charge from the last
BT unit from their rhino and the Berserkers on the left angled their assault and went after and killed the Predator.
The game continued to turn 6 and Dave’s speeder came out of hiding and killed the last man in a plague marine unit (getting the point for killing my most expensive unit) but this was the last thing he had left alive and in my turn 6 I killed it in combat with berserkers and the khorne princess. I ended the game with 17 points and Dave got 5.
Despite coming second on battle points (Mannahnin from this forum got one more point than me) I ended up with the win, getting more in the soft scorse department. I guess there is something to be said for not taking Lash of Submission
If anyone is interested in seeing the results of the event, Danger Planet have it up on their forums:
http://www.dangerplanetgames.com/dpnuke/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=14266&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
As always this was an excellently run tournament and the opponents and terrain were up to the usual very high standard. If anyone in the North East of the US gets a chance to go to this great store I highly recommend it.
