Sleg wrote:When is the Tournament? Did it already happen? How did you do?
Yesterday.
In the first game we played a pair with Tau and Space Marines, with two Riptides, two Dreadnoughts with
MM/
HF in a drop pod, with some scouts and firewarriors behind an
ADL. Long story short we got annihilated, with S8 pie plates just killing our guys on 2's well before we got to their lines, the fact we couldn't do anything to the Riptides without the Loota's (burned to death and fled in their turn 2 by an incredibly lucky scatterless dreadnought drop right next to the board edge) and my Dakkajet that came in got poor rolling in its shooting before being shot down by one of the Riptides. The other one didn't arrive until turn 4 because they had the negative reserves warlord trait that decreased their chances of coming in.
Basically it was the sort of army we were least ready to face.
Second game was against
IG+
SM, they camped inside a Fortress of Redemption and we got Hammer and Anvil deployment. We never reached their Fortress with the horde because we gained little ground after being ripped to pieces with the pie plates, sniper rifles and other things each turn. By the end of turn 4 we were 6'' away with 12 Boys and a Nob from their objective. (having not instigated a charge yet, as the result of a run move putting us in the distance)
They had a Vendetta in front of our objective (it was the one-objective-each mission) and despite an entire mob of Boys firing at its rear armour and all the Lootas firing at its side armour we couldn't knock it out of the sky. The Lootas rolled one shot each, and even then I managed to get a hit, penetrate and explodes result, but he jinked successfully. The Vendetta then hovered, disembarked flamer vets, which wiped us clean off the objective. We then ended the game due to time at turn 4. If we'd had one more turn the Boys would have got the objective on both sides of the board and massacred the Guard, but eh, crap happens.
Third game was against Eldar, we were basically slaughtering them with fire but our Warboss got picked out early, giving them first blood + slay the warlord, so in the end they ended up winning by one point because we got line breaker but not either of their objectives, because they were too far away. If we'd had one more turn I could of reached and killed both Farseers with the combined fire from my Lootas and Shootas.
Personally, I think its been an enlightening experience.
I've come to a few conclusions:
1) Although I'd already decided upon it before, my opinion that Riptides are the most broken and dumb unit in
40k at present has been reinforced. They're just ridiculous. For 200 or less points, you have an almost impossible to kill unit that does absolutely everything. High strength, AP2 pie plates? Yeah. Melta gun for heavy
AT? Yeah. Effective
AA? Yeah. Nightfighting? Range? Whats that? Oh, you're going to plan to shoot from a distance/assault me? I get a
2D6 jump pack move, so screw you.
All in all there were about a dozen plus Riptides being used at the event, but not a single Wraithknight in sight.
2) Unless you have absolutely obscene numbers of footsloggers (I'm talking about 120+ at least) I see no way footslogging Ork hordes can work, even with a
KFF. We had two options most of the time - spread out and not lose a ton of Boys per turn to pie plates, or stay tight together and not lose 3'' + distance to the enemy from taking casualties form the front. Neither was advisable. We never charged any unit once. The Shoota Boys only fired in the last game when I absolutely riddled some unlucky Dire Avengers with bullets.
3) The flyer scare has worn off. There weren't many flyers at the event at all compared to the singles 1250 Tournament I went to a few months ago. The number of people who took flyers could probably be counted on both my hands.
4) The Loota's weren't worth it in the end. The most commendable thing they did all day was killing 5 Dire Avengers in a round of shooting. If I had the power to go back in time I'd have heavily considered a
KFF instead, even if it only affected 40 Boys. I didn't really want to aggravate my partner by telling him the center piece of his collection wasn't really advisable but I feel the Warboss added little- he did nothing all day.
5) All of the successful lists had a gimmicky formula. E.g:
One team I knew had two Riptides, some Fire Warriors, an
ADL with I.L,
DA Tacticals, Libby and Standard of Devastation. Riptides are impossible to kill at range, if you get within 24'' you get massacred by bolter shells, and you can't kill the Tacticals because they go to ground for 2+ cover saves. I'd played with them in practice games.
One team I really didn't expect to do well just had Dire Avengers, Maugan Ra, Dark Reapers, with some Grey Hunters (some in a drop pod), a Rune Priest with
JOTWW for killing Riptides and the like, and a Land Raider, which accommodated the other Grey Hunters. They won all 3 games too.
The list they had in the first game with two Riptides and two Dreadnoughts.
6) Land vehicles were incredibly rare, looking around. I've been doubting all this crap about how they're better off this edition for ages (especially transports) and the tournament solidified my observation. The team 'Tanks R Us' who won the last tournament of this kind with
IG Mechanized (1500 doubles for the record) had a loss, draw and a win.