I've been neglecting my Batreps for quite some time, so I decided to make up with it by a double post.
In Atlanta we have been having a tournament circuit. This is a series of 4 linked tourneys, with the final score being added up from all of them. Each tourney is held at one of North Atlanta's stores, the idea is to promote cross store cooperation.
Thus far we've had 19 or more players at each store, and we have had the first three tourneys and advanced signups for the last. Considering Warfan's last solo event drew 6 folks (all our club members) I think we can call the circuit a rousing success. There are a lot of very good players in Atlanta, it's nice to get them all together.
I've already done a batrep for Tourney one, it's located here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/257461.page
To sum up for those who don't feel like following the link, I played my Terminator heavy
CSM and won the game at my home club, putting me in first for the Circuit going into round 2.
Round 2 of the tourney was going to be very similar to round 1 (though at Tower games instead, a larger store than the Pit), but was set to be at 2k points. I had a resolution not to play the same army at any of the tourneys in the circuit, so I looked around my collection to scrape together a fierce list.
I chanced across my Khornate Daemon Prince model, the new Forge World guy with the axe. I'd had him painted recently, and he looked totally awesome. I wanted to play him in a tourney, but Khorne Daemon princes bite so hard. Ultimately I decided to make him Skarbrand (big Khornate guy who doesn't fly, close enough). It wasn't a perfect fit, as Skarbrand has tattered wings and a pair of axes while Choppy has one axe and no wings, but it works.
I stole inspiration from Player D, and used a list he'd worked out once upon a time.
The Warp Kings:
Skarbrand
Kairos
5 Bloodcrushers w/Icon, render, musician
5 Plaguebearers w/Icon
5 Plaguebearers w/Icon
5 Plaguebearers
5 Plaguebearers
5 Pink Horrors w/Changlign, Bolt
Daemon Prince of Nurgle w/Iron Hide, noxious touch, cloud of flies, Daemonic wings
Daemon Prince of Nurgle w/Iron Hide, noxious touch, cloud of flies, Daemonic wings
Daemon Prince of Nurgle w/Iron Hide, noxious touch, cloud of flies, Daemonic wings
Game #1:
Mission:
KP Primary, Objectives secondary, Dawn of War deployment, Vortex Grenade (Adepticon style)
Enemy list:
Space Marines, I can't recall the exact details. No real gimmick, just some
tac squads, some bikers, some dreads, middle of the road stuff.
Game:
If you've ever played vs. Daemons in a Dawn of War scenario where everything goes wrong, you know how this goes. Add in an experience gap and it gets ugly. Basically, to get to the objectives he has to come on in a certain area. I go first and get the right half of my army, covering it with Daemons.
He comes on, and gets jumped by said Daemons. They spend the game eating Space Marines. The Scout bikes with the Vortex grenade were outflanking, so they don't show up till too late, and get jumped by a
DP off a long massacre.
The guy keeps good humor, and we have a fun game despite the one sided nature of it. I name my
DP's and begin a tally of competition with each other.
Game #2:
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Primary: One objective in the center of the board
Secondary: Win by 500
Vp's
Tertiary: Kill all enemy
HQ's
Enemy: Fiercer Space Marines
Lysander
Vulcan
10 Sternguard in drop pod
10
Tac marines in drop pod
10
Tac marines in Rhino
10
Tac Mariens in Rhino
1 Land Speeder
1 Ironclad in drop pod
1 Dread with twin autocannons
1 Pred with autocannons
I make him take first turn and he spreads his guys out. Lysander and his Sterngaurd are waiting in their drop pod. Vulcan and his
tac marines land near the center objective.
My turn, the Daemons land all about him, I get the good half again (all the big stuff, leaving troops in reserve). Skarbrand and Kairos land close to the Vulcan Marines, but can't quite reach the magic 6" distance, while
DP's land all about his guys.
Vulcan steps forth from his guys, who he sends backing away from the Daemons to help shoot a
DP. It looks like suicide until Lysander and the Sternguard deep strike to the rescue. Shoot, reroll for bolter drill, wounds on 2+ bolts, ultimately 18 wounds to Skarbrand. I pick his dice up, and roll em right back, making 16 saves. In Yo Face!
Vulcan gamely charges in, and with the help of Skarbrand's rerolls manages to do 2 wounds to Skarbrand, but I save em both. In return, Skarbrand deals 3 wounds to Vulcan, and one gets through. CHOP! Heads come off.
Now Skarbrand turns on on the Sternguard, and roars at 4 of them. Kairos flies up and
BoC's the remaining set, killing 3, and turns Lysander into a Spawn! YESSS! Killing Lsyander is normally such a pain.
After this travesty my foe is pretty much doomed. The
DP's have been doing as they do, and he's lost his troops (or most of them), and the Bloodcrushers are pretty much unopposed, rampaging around at will. He focuses the rest of his forces on Kairos and Skarbrand, and ultimately is able to get them.
I was able to get the 500 point margin though, so I get all 3 objectives, while he pulls off some points for killing my 3
HQ's.
A second consecutive slaughter earns me a battle with Player A, oh joy. Running into Player A while trying to maximize points for the circuit is like being in a library looking up stuff for a test tomorrow night and then you get jumped by ninjas and crippled with White Spider Poison.
Player A is playing the army he won the Adepticon Invitational with. Fantastic. You know, the day I'd had to play his Tzeentch Daemons in the Fantasy 'Ardboyz. He's like my personal raincloud.
Twin-Lash:
Lash Sorcerer w/wings (modeled as wings, because he wants to ride in a Rhino, and
GW can't write a
FAQ to save its miserable soul)
Lash Prince w/wings
9 Zerkers w/lash prince, Rhino w/combi melta
9 Zerkers w/lash prince, Rhino w/combi melta
9 Zerkers w/lash prince, Rhino w/combi melta
6 Plague Marines w/2 plasma guns, Rhino w/combi melta
3 Oblits
3 Oblits
Defiler
Mission:
Deployment: Spearhead
Primary: Objectives (6 of them)
Secondary: 750
VP margin
Tertiary: Have a unit in all 4 quarters
He sets up, goes first (not a lot, just moves around a bit).
I get the wrong half of the army.
Other than all the sinning, what've I done that's so wrong? Oh Dice Gods, why have ye forsaken me?!
I drop some troops around, in a desultory fashion. The idea is to land in all 4 quarters and keep the tertiary. I figure I can not lose by 750 points and draw the secondary as well.
He turns about with his Lash Prince and Defiler to kill the icon wielding
PB's that landed behind him, but rolls 2" on the lash, only allowing the Defiler to get into combat. The
PB with the Icon survives (as do several others).
On my turn I get everyone but Skarbrand. We all land off that Icon, behind him and bunched up around Kairos.
He thinks a bit, then sends the Lash Prince in on Kairos, neither does anything. I put a
DP into the Lash Prince as Skarbrand lands, and 2 Lash Princes into the Defiler, but it doesn't die.
So he's got this knot of death in his back pocket, and he decides to decamp till the middle of the board. With only one lash he can't play as aggressively as he might, and we basically spend the rest of the game trading
DP's and Berserkers. Kairos rolls rotten and goes down a bit early.
He gets my spread out troops out of all the quarters, basically because I tried to do things with them instead of just running them (thought I might snag an objective while the Daemons occupied his forces) Thus, no tertiary for me.
He gets primary and tertiary, while we draw Secondary, 25 5 for him.Feh.
End of Tourney #1.
I'm still in first in the Circuit, despite a fairly mediocre second round. Player A won, another fellow, let's call him Jack (it's short for a longer word that rhymes with backfass) was borrowing my Necrons and got max battle points, and another guy (hereafter Fargo) with Blood Angels who did great the first round also did really well this round, putting him right behind me going into round 3.
A month and change went by...Tourney #3!
Tourney 3 is at Giga Bytes Cafe. It's unique among Atlanta game stores in that it has a food store inside. I approve. Quarters were a bit cramped, and it got hot, but otherwise the store was fine.
I brought my next tourney force out, enough theme armies, I want to kick some trash!
Pain Train
Librarian w/Null Zone, Might of the Ancients
Master of the Forge w/2 servitors
5 Space Marines w/Razorback w/twin linked lascannon
5 Space Marines w/Razorback w/twin linked lascannon
5 Space Marines w/Razorback w/twin linked lascannon
Ironclad Dread w/2 Hunter Killer Missiles, Ironclad launchers, storm bolter upgraded to heavy flamer
Ironclad Dread w/2 Hunter Killer Missiles, Ironclad launchers, storm bolter upgraded to heavy flamer
Ironclad Dread w/2 Hunter Killer Missiles, Ironclad launchers, storm bolter upgraded to heavy flamer
Ironclad Dread w/2 Hunter Killer Missiles, Ironclad launchers, storm bolter upgraded to heavy flamer
Ironclad Dread w/2 Hunter Killer Missiles, Ironclad launchers, storm bolter upgraded to heavy flamer
Ironclad Dread w/2 Hunter Killer Missiles, Ironclad launchers, storm bolter upgraded to heavy flamer
8 Assault Marines w/Rhino w/extra armor, dozer blade, Sarge has Power Fist
Game #1: Vs. Player A
(WHYYYYYYY!!!!! He's been getting in my way so often lately, my theory is that the Skaven Codex's release has empowered him, as a minion of the Horned Rat)
Same list as last time.
Mission: Dawn of War
Primary: Get Objectives (there are 6, 3 dissappear, Ardboyz style)
Secondary: Kill Points
Tertiary: Get more Troop units on their side of the board
He gets first turn (of f*ing course he does, Gah!) and south he comes. He puts the 3 Berserkers on one side, and the Plague Marines and Prince on the other (there's enough cover to hide the
DP).
This is a problem, as night fight protects him. I move my Ironclads up on the Zerker side, and sort of feint with the Rhino on the other side.
Next round he comes south again, smoking, and shoots down one of my razorbacks.
I open up with the alpha strike. I figure I've got 12 missiles, some lascannons, one long range meltagun shot, ought to be about 10 hits, 6 pens, 3 get through, 1-2 destroy vehicles, one stunned or crippled in some other way.
I do nothing. Not a single glancing hit makes it through the smoke. A wholeheartedly miserable round of shooting.
He moves up, oblits pop the other razorback, Zerkers immobilize an Ironclad with some combi melta love.
I step up and give him the meltaguns. STILL can't killa Rhino, I have to pop it by assaulting. he's got the tempo.
He moves the Zerkers up and the Obltis and meltas/charges en-masse. I countercharge and it all shakes out to 2 dead Zerker units, and all the Ironclads dead, mostly to Oblit fire when they get immobilized in combat with the Zerkers. I NEEDED to pop those Rhinos.
His remaining Zerker unit backs up to an objective, while the objective under my foot sloggers dissappears. Priceless.
On the other flank his Plague Marines immobilized their rhino, and they and the
DP are trying to cover all the objectives from my last razorback's tank shock. I have an opportunity to snatch back a draw on primary, but the TechMarine + servitors fail their terrain roll.
Feh. I lose again on primary and secondary, though I take tertiary. Another 25-5 drubbing. Surreal.
Game #2:
Spearhead
Primary: One objective in center
Secondary: Table quarters
Tertiary: Kill enemy
HQ
He's got some fairly scrubby
CSM (for example, a 3 man terminator unit with 3 combi meltas and a Mark of Nurgle)
I figure the game for a walkover, and it almost is, but he's canny enough to hold back his troops and make a last minute push for the center objective, essentially choosing not to engage for the whole of the game to have a shot at getting SOME points out of a mismatch. It works on turn 5, but the game goes 7 and I've got time to remove him from the objectie and get the massacre.
There was also a rocky match between an Ironclad and a Chaos Dread in this game, with a total of something like 5 damage results over 8 combat rounds before a one armed one legged Ironclad was victorious.
Final match, vs. Necrons:
Deceiver
10 warriors
10 warriors
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
8 Scarabs
8 Immortals
Mission:
Primary: Modified
KP,
HQ's worth 1, Troops 3, others 2, Dedicated transports 1
Secondary: Kill all enemy troops
Tertiary: Have more troops in your deployment zone
I figure what'll happen this game is that I'll slog across the board, getting particle whipped and cannon'd the whole way, and lose all my dreads and lose by
KP. I doubt he'll be able to come and get my troops, or vice versa.
What actually happens is that I slog across the board, and his shooting totally fails. The Deceiver steps out too early, and is promptly null zoned and missile launcher/melta'd to death. He pops a Rhino, then the Ironclads just walk towards him, ultimately reaching and crushing the monoliths, a unit of immortals, a unit of warriors, and a unit of scarabs he threw in to hold them up for a round. I win on
KP and having more guys in my zone, but I can't reach his last unit of warriors (they come in on 4).
He's a good sport about the rotten rolling, I know that hurts. Necrons NEED their shooting to work, as assault isnt' going to get them anywhere.
So I get a 60 total in this tourney. In a bit of Karma, Player A has a 40 (he got 25 in our game, 15 in the next, a tie vs. another mirror list, and 0 in the last when Space Wolves wrecked him), Fargo got a 55, and everyone above me were out of towners or guys who'd missed a tourney. I think I'm still in #1 in the circuit, though it might have tightened up a bit.
The last tourney will be in December. Should be grand old times. Aside from me and Fargo there's like 6 other guys in close competition, and there's already 20 signed up.
Imperial Guardmens blight 
