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So, on March 5th, 2011, I was lucky enough to play in the Endless Gaming Grand Opening 40k Tournament. I arrived at around 8:00AM and prepared myself for my first 4 round tournament outside of Adepticon. I brought the following list:

Hq
Daemon Prince, Wings, Mark of Tzeench
Daemon Prince, Wings, Mark of Tzeench

Troops
8 Khorne Berzerkers, Skull Champion with Power fist, Rhino
8 Khorne Berzerkers, Skull Champion with Power fist, Rhino
7 Plague Marines, 2 Melta guns, Rhino
6 plague marines, 2 plasma guns, Rhino

Elites
Dreadnought, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon, Missile launcher
Dreadnought, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon, Missile launcher
Dreadnought, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon, Missile launcher

Heavy Support
Defiler, Reaper Auto-Cannon, Close Combat Weapon
Defiler, Reaper Auto-Cannon, Close Combat Weapon
Defiler, Reaper Auto-Cannon, Close Combat Weapon



Round 1

Round one I fought a very nice guy named Pat. Pat brought Daemons, and had exactly the style list that I was worried about, and was hoping would not be at the tournament. His list was the following:

Fateweaver
Hearlad of Tzeench, Chariot, Breath of Chaos
Hearlad of Tzeench, Chariot, Breath of Chaos
6 Fiends, unholy might
6 Fiends, unholy might
4 Bloodcrushers, Fury of Khorne, Instrument of Chaos
4 Screamers of Tzeench
4 Screamers of Tzeench
5 bloodletters
5 bloodletters
20 Daemonettes
Soul Grinder, Phlegm
Soul Grinder Phlegm

He had a lot of conversions, and it was a very good looking army.

Initial Thoughts: Fateweaver is a problem. My list has no good way to kill him, and he makes killing everything else much harder. Not good.

Mission:
Each round had 3 objectives: Kill points, Capture and control, and seize ground(automatic 3 objectives) Whoever won the majority of these won the game.

Deployment for game 1 was Dawn of War.


I lose the roll, and my opponent goes first. There are capture and control objectives in the backs of each of our deployment zones, A seize ground objective about a 18 inches into my deployment zone, and 2 seize ground objectives in the back of his deployment zone.


I deploy nothing, and keep the 6 plague marines with plasma guns in reserve, and declare I will walk the rest of my army onto the board edge turn 1.


Opponent Turn 1: he gets preferred wave and bring in, 2 fiends, 1 crusher, fateweaver, 2 soul grinders, and 20 daemonettes. The soul grinders were on the flanks, and Fateweaver along with everything else is blobbed up in the center.

My turn 1:
I drive a plague marine rhino with 2 melta guns onto the right side, 2 Berzerker Rhinos and two Daemon Princes onto the left side, and all 6 walkers in the middle. I move and smoke, and shooting kills 1 daemonette.

His turn 2:
He moves the 20 daemonettes and fateweaver right towards me. He brings in a herald, a unit of screamers, and a unit of Bloodletters. His shooting is not that great, and he multi assaults 2 defilers with the 20 daemonettes, and hits a dreadnought with 6 Fiends and fateweaver. The Fiends explode the Dreadnought, and the Daemonettes and Defilers don't do any damage to each other. Somewhere in there, he killed another dreadnought, but I really can't remember how. I think it was in this assault. Maybe he multi assaulted.

My turn 2:
My 6 plague marines come in, and drive up to fire some shots at some fiends.
My berzeekers and DPs advance up the left side toward a Soul Grinder, and on the right side my Plague Marines move up as well, and are able to kill a Soul Grinder with their melta guns. In the center, I get a defiler and a dreadnought to shoot into and assault a unit of fiends. However, Fateweaver's re-roll ability ensures that I only do 2 wounds. Daemonettes and Defilers fail to harm each other at all.

His turn 3:
The rest of his reserves come in. The bloodcrushers start moving to the right side in preparation of the Berzerkers. He moves up his Soul grinder to help fight the defilers, but is just a few inches short of assault. His two bloodletter squads hide in terrain. Shooting sees one DP knocked down to 2 wounds. He turbo-boosts a unit of screamers to try and wall of one oh my rhino’s from advancing. Fatweaver flys over with Daemonettes and charges a defiler, and daemonettes do nothing to defilers and defilers deal one wound. Fiends kill a Defiler.

My turn 3.
On the left side, I advance toward the retreating soul grinder with both princes and a rhino full of berzerkers. My berserkers in the walled off rhino hop out and prepare to charge the screamers. I am far enough away from his bloodcrushers, that I can do this, and not get charged next turn. On the far right side, my Plague marines drive 12 inches toward his side of the board. In assault, a Tzeench DP assaults a Soul Grinder, and hits 4 times, but fails to do any damage. Bummer. The berserkers assault the screamers and wipe them out, but only consolidate 1 inch. Bad news bears. His fiends stay locked with a dreadnought and Fateweaver kills a defiler, and then cannot make it into base contact with the other defiler, and is then free from the assault.

His Turn 4:
On the left side, his Tzeench Herald moves up and puts a bolt of tzeench and a break of chaos on the clumped up berserkers and kills 5. I really should have been more careful with them. His Blood crushers move and run toward the Soul Grinder and Daemon Prince battle, and his fiends charge in and assault both Daemon Princes. Fateweaver flies over and helps out the Fiends fighting the dreadnought, but fails to kill it. The remaining 12 daemonettes fight the defiler and manage to immobilize it. His screamers move up and assault the plague marine rhino that moved 12, and 5 bloodletters help out. They manage to blow up the rhino, and I lose a plague marine in the explosion.
In the Daemon Prince and Fiend and Soul Grinder battle, I fail to do anything to the soul grinder, and the fiends put two wounds on the prince fighting the soul grinder. I lose combat and after combat res, both my princes have just 1 wound.

My turn 4:
I drive my 6 plasma plague marines onto the capture and control objective near fateweaver and friends. I probably should have just abandoned ship on that objective and driven away, but I didn’t. On the left side, my three man berserker unit moves up the assault fiends, and my fresh berserk unit hops out to prepare to assault fineds. I then make a very nice wall of of rhinos to keep from being assaulted by Bloodcrushers. On the right side, my 6 plague marines move up to the 5 bloodletters and fire their melta guns and bolt pistols, killing 1 or 2. In assault, I charge the bloodletters with the plague marines and kill all the bloodletters, losing none in return. Against the fFeinds and Soul Grinder, My Daemon prince finally comes through and wrecks the Soul Grinder. Between the berserkers and other DP, I wipe out the fiends, but lose 2 berzerkers from the 8 man squad, and lose both Daemon Princes. I consolidate and hide behind my rhino wall.
Fateweaver and the fiends finally kill the dreadnought, and consolidate toward my 6 plague marines in Rhino.

His Turn 5:
He moves his last bloodletter squad onto both the capture and control and the seize ground objective. Fateweaver and the fiends move toward the plague marine rhino. His heralds shoot at rhinos and do nothing of consequence. In assault, the defiler keeps fighting the daemonettes, and fateweaver and the fiends assault and immobilize the plague marine rhino. His bloodcrushers assault the rhino wall and fail to hit it.

My turn 5: My plague marines on left side cower in their rhino, and my plague marines with melta guns on the right side advance on his objective. My Berzerkers embark in their rhinos and drive 12 toward his last surving troop unit and tank shock the bloodcrushers out of the way. Fiends and fateweaver explode the rhino. Daemonettes weapon destroy the defiler. Defiler kills a few.

Time is running low, and we have just enough time for one final turn.

His turn 6: He moves his surving bloodcrushers and heralds to stop my rhinos. His screamers wall off the plague marines from reaching his 5 bloodletters on 2 objectives. Shooting weapon destroys the back rhino with 5 berzerkers, and immobilizes the lead rhino with 3 berzekers. In assault he does not do any more damage to the rhinos, and he kills all but 1 plague marine.

My turn 6:
I see my chance. If I can kill those 5 bloodletters, then I win. I disembark my 3 berzerkers and move toward the bloodletters. My plague marines can’t move through the screamers, but I move into rapid fire range. My 5 Man berserk unit get out to assault a herald of tzeench. In shooting, all of my bolt pistols and bolters and melta guns fail to to anything to the bloodletter squad. I assault a tzeench healrd with 5 berzerkers and kill it. My 3 man berserker squad assaults the bloodletters and kills 2 at I 5. I take no damage in return, and the Power fist kills one more. He takes 3 combat res saves and fails 2. 1 bloodletter is left alive, and it is barely still on the objective. The game ends.

He wins Kill points, Capture and Control, and Seize ground. I was literally 1 wound away from winning seize ground and capture and control, but I just couldn’t kill the bloodletters. Oh well. Sometimes that happens. It was a very close game and was a lot of fun.

Post game thoughts: I think I really messed up with my deployment. I did not expect those daemonettes, fateweaver, and 1 unit of fiends to take all 6 walkers out of the game. In the future, I think I would have been better off If I had deployed everything in the center, and when fateweaver and his buddies came to play, just thrown everything I had at them.

That’s it for round 1! I will post Round 2 as soon as I get the chance.
Pictures of the game:

That's Pat from the 11th company podcast for sure, I remember that standard demon list from anywhere.

Griever wrote:That's Pat from the 11th company podcast for sure, I remember that standard demon list from anywhere.

That's him alright.

Round 2

After losing Round 1, I knew I was probably not in the running for first place anymore, that that did not bother me. My first game was a great game, and I just hoped to do the best I could in the following Rounds.

Round 2 Saw me facing off against a nice Tyranid player Named Richard. He used the following list:

Tyranid prime w/2 bone swords, regenerate, deathspitter
3 tyranid warriors, lash whip, bone sword and deathspitter(2), barbed strangler, lash whip bone sword
12 genestealers w/toxin sacks
Tervigon, adrenal glands, toxin sacs
Tervigon, adrenal glands, toxin sacs
10 termagaunts
10 termagaunts
Tyrannofex
Tyrannofex
3 Biovore
2 venethropes
2 hive guard
2 zoanthropes

He had a good looking army with good conversions.

Deployment for mission 2 was spearhead. I won the roll to go first and chose to go first. I set up as close as I could to him as I could.

Initial Thoughts:
Nothing in his list really scared me. I had too many threats for him to deal with. With objective placement, I thought that i could just throw my whole army at him, and even if it all died, it would still keep him back, and I could hold 2 objectives with one squad of plague marines.

I could write this turn by turn, but the game was really not very tactical, and a summary might be better. I simply moved and ran my whole army at him full speed and crashed into his lines. His dice were not that good, and he simply could not deal with it. My walkers and Daemon princes simply could not be stopped.
When the game ended, he only had a few units left, and I ended up winning kill points and seize ground. We tied on capture and control.

He was nice about it, but this was a really bad match up for him.

Post game: I got the major win, but gave up an incredible amount of VPs in the process. Something like 1400. I nearly tabled him, but was almost out of models myself. I realized that I need to find a way to keep this from happening.



With a Major win under my belt I headed into round 3.

Pictures of the game:

Since I am about to go to Adepticon, I had better finish this battle report. Due to shortened time, they will be abbreviated, but I still feel like I should finish the report.

My Third game was against a very nice Eldar player named Charlie. He took the following list:

Autarch, Warp generator, fusion gun, mandiblaster, chainsword
Farseet, Jetbike, Fortune, Rune Warding
10 warlocks, 10 jetbikes, embolden, enhance,
6 fire dragons, exarch, firepike, crack shot, Wave serpent, 2 shuriken cannons, spirit stones
11 guardians, scatterlaser, warlock, embolden, Wave serpent, EML, Spirit stones
11 guardians, scatterlaser, warlock, embolden, Wave serpent, EML, Spirit stones
Falcon, eldar missile launcher, spirit stones, shuriken cannon, holofiled
Fireprism, Spirit stones, Holofield
Wraithlord, bright lance, Eldar missile launcher

Charlie won the roll to go first, and chose to do so. Terrain was pretty evenly spread, with lots of area terrain, and one line of sight blocking feature in the middle. The mission called for pitched battle deployment, with the same 3 objectives as the other two missions.

He deployed in a line in front of me, with his jetbike doom squad in the middle.
I deployed slightly off center, using terrain to block fire from some of his tanks. I keep the melta gun plague marines in reserve

Pre-game analysis: Nothing in his list really scared me, but I knew that dealing with a fortuned jet bike squad would be an issue.

The biggest thing in this game was that just as Charlie was about to start his turn, I stole the initiative...He was not very happy about this, as his jet bike squad was in the open.

My Turn 1

I make a general advance. walkers walk up the center, 1 berzerker unit move ahead and slightly behind terrain, the other moves straight ahead. Plague marines fly up both flanks, Daemon princes move in support.
m
3 battle cannons and 3 missiles later, the 11 guardian jet bikes are down to 5. It was a good round for me.

Charlie's turn 1
He boosts his jetbike squad right toward me, and boosts the fire dragons toward me on the left side. His shooting is able to knock out a defiler, and immobilize 2 dreads.

My turn 2. I advance the walker wall, and tuck my two berzerker squads behind the center terrain piece, a DP moves to support. Plague marines on the right drive ahead 12. My melta plague marines come on from reserve, and move on 12 near the berzerkers. Shooting does minimal damage, I think just shaking a vehicle.

Charlie turn 2.
His fire dragons move into zone, and hop out to shoot a berzerker rhino. the jetbikes moves up to assault. He fortunes his jet bikes, and his shooting kills another defiler, and immobilizes a plague marine rhino that was on my right side. the fire dragons only manage to weapon destroy a berzerker rhino. Jetbikes kill the dread.

My turn 3.
I move up a daemon prinplague and a berzerker squad to his his jetbikes. My plague marines chill in their immobilized rhino. On the left side, the mobile plague marines rhino goes ahead 12. The berzerkers hop out of their weaponless rhino and prepare to assault the wave serpent. my DP moves up to assault the fire dragons. Shooting does nothing, and in assault, I kill the wave serpent, the DP kills 4 fire dragons, but they hold, and I do 2 wounds to the Jet bike unit.

His turn 3.
He kills my last defiler, and thats about it. In assault, my DP wipes out the Firedragons, and consolidates 6 inches toward his lines. berzerkers and friends do one more wound to the Jet bikes, killing the embolden guy.

My turn 4.

The left plauge marine unit drives ahead 12 again. Berzerkers move onto an objective in the LOS blocking terrain. The Free DP flies up and prepares to hit a falcon that only moved 6 inches.
In assault, the DP immobilized a fire prism. Against the jet bikes, I kill one more, and put a wound on the farseer.

He ties to kill my plague marine rhino making an advance toward him, but can't do it. Both my DPs soak up tons of fire, and just don't die. He moves a waveserpent toward the center objective. in assault, My
DP kills the fire prism, and my berzerkers and DP widdle down the jet bikes, and kill the farseer.

I think I might be a little off in terms of events and turns at this point, I will do the rest in a summary. He basically can't stop my melta plague mairines, and they hop out and take pop shots at the Falcon, eventually killing it.

My DPs roll like they have a 2++ save, and I kill most all of his army with DPs and berzerkers. He holds back one wave serpent and claims the Capture and control objective. He sends another wave serpent to contest my plague marines who are now holding a capture and control objective as well, but rolls a 1 when coming out of terrain and can't do it.

I end up winning Kill points, and Seize ground.

It was a fun game, and Charlie was my Favorite opponent of the day.

Pictures:

Definitely a fun and challenging game. I just played in a 1500 point tourney with the same format last weekend with my Eldar and again, I had to watch my opponent Steal the Initiative. That single dice roll has flat out crushed me in two games in two tourneys; so much so I'm having to completely re-examine how I play the army. Out of the games I ended up not getting first turn in the past two tourneys (5 games), I've only won 1. Definitely a huge flaw in my list and playstyle.

Best of luck at Adepticon and thanks again for a fun game.