Crossposted to B&C so apologies if already seen.
I played in a 100 player 2-day tournament over the weekend called Caledonian Revolution. It was a
UK event attended (and won) by members of the
40k Team England and people from right across the country. Really well organised and managed and great fun.
Here are the top 10 finishers in order. Unfortunately I don't know the full lists - just the faction that all units in the army shared. Note that if you had an 80% admech army plus a knight (for example) then you are faction Imperium... so that hides quite a lot of complexity.
1 - Imperium (I am pretty sure this was a 5 Stormravens list)
2 - Orks (Yes, Orks finished 2nd! Would love to know what this list was!)
3 - Ynnari (150+ razorwing flocks, the yncarne, yvraine, maugan ra... horrible list!)
4 - Chaos
5 - Astra Militarum (Plasma Scions, conscripts and mortar teams.. since nerfed)
6 - Imperium
7 - Chaos
8 - Adeptus Astartes
9 - Grey Knights (2 NDK's, Kaldor Draigo, lots of storm bolters and smites)
10 - Imperium
So yeah, Orks in 2nd place is good news - the tournament was very competitive with a lot of people bringing pretty cheesy lists... things like 12 Heretic Astartes Daemon Princes (8W, can't be targeted unless closest) screened by about 100 brimstones and blue horrors who can all smite. Vomit.
Another one was 2 Renegade Knights and a Lord of Skulls - who got Warptimed up the table right in your face turn 1. AAAH!
Here's a photo of one table setting up - the 3rd place Ynnari list and a drones-heavy Tau list. I am so pleased I didn't play anything like this!
I am by no means a good
40k player - made many, many mistakes - but was pretty happy to come in 55th place. Despite going 1-4 (lost my first 4 games, won the final one) I finished
above all of my opponents. This is purely down to never getting tabled and always scoring some tournament points every round. Loads of people were getting tabled at least once in the 2 days... 8th is brutal!
My List:
Army Faction: Adeptus Astartes – Command Points 6
Battalion Detachment – Keyword: Adeptus Astartes
HQ: Chaplain - Warlord
HQ: Librarian, Jump Pack, Force Axe
TROOPS: 5 Scouts, Sniper Rifles, 5 Camo Cloaks
TROOPS: 5 Scouts, Sniper Rifles, 5 Camo Cloaks
TROOPS: 5 Tacticals, Combi-Plasma, Plasmagun
TROOPS: 5 Tacticals, Combi-Plasma, Lascannon
ELITES: 5 Terminators, Cyclone Missile Launcher
ELITES: 5 Vanguard Veterans, Power Sword, Plasma Pistol, 2 Storm Shield/Thunder Hammer
ELITES: Venerable Dreadnought, Powerfist, heavy flamer, Assault Cannon
TRANSPORT: Razorback with Twin Lascannon
TRANSPORT: Rhino
FLYER: Stormraven Gunship: Twin Lascannon, Two Hurricane Bolters,Twin Multi-Melta, Two Stormstrike Missiles
FLYER: Stormraven Gunship: Twin Assault Cannon, Two Hurricane Bolters, Twin Multi-Melta, Two Stormstrike Missiles
Army Total: 1997 pts
Ready for deployment... I had to borrow one of the Stormravens!
The general plan is to go first due to only 6 "drops" and strike aggressively with 'ravens then fly around shooting stuff. Turn 2 drop the Ven Dread, the Librarian+Vanguard Vets and the Chaplain+Terminators near high value targets so they can melee stuff to death.
Note the
ETC scoring uses Eternal War AND Maelstrom AND Specials (Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord etc) AND kill points differential - which is why the scores look high.
Game 1 vs Orks
I was happy to get a "nice" army to start and moderately confident going into this as my Stormravens put out a lot of dakka. Prioiritised his Stormboys and Burna Boyz as the two units that might hurt me. He hid his weirdboy very well so I coudn't snipe it, and he managed to do the obvious Da Jump of 30 boyz into my backfield. Despite getting
FB and STW and doing an immense amount of damage to him, he won on the Eternal War objectives which I honestly forgot to make a move for early enough.
Highlights - the sheer carnage of the first two turns. I think he was certain he was going to lose.
Lowlights - leaving my libarian exposed with a bad advance roll and getting Mega-nobbed. Totally forgetting that 4 of the 6 objectives gave additional
VPs at the end.
Had to call the game at the end of Turn 4.
Me: 10vp
Orks: 14vp
Da Jump!!!
Game 2 vs Imperium
Great player, fun army. Black Templars. He had a Godhammer Land Raider, 2 Las Razorbacks, 2 Stormtalons and a knight. High Marshal Helbrecht giving rerolls to the
LR and Razorbacks.
This was my biggest beating. I wasn't sure what to target priority and wounded a lot of things but killed very little. Stormtalons were effective against troops and ravens.
Highlights - smashing High Marhsal Helbrecht into giblets with Power Fists.
Lowlights - Land Raider killed my unharmed venerable dread in overwatch! 8 wounds in overwatch!!!
Game ended turn 6.
Me: 15vp
Templars: 29vp
Trying and failing to kill a Land Raider
Game 3 vs Imperium
This one was vs a weird mix of Raven Guard, Dark Angels and Assassins.
I don't think his army was very effective and I was really annoyed to narrowly lose this one. The assassins were suepr annoying - a lot of the time I couldn't shoot them at all, and they just camped objectives.
Highlight: Smashing Kayvaan Shrike into giblets with thunder hammers.
Game ended turn 6.
Me: 16vp
Him: 19vp
Didn't take any photos of this for some reason! Tired!
AT THIS POINT as we were packing up my opponent said "Don't Stormravens have missiles as well?" and I realised I'd played the whole of day 1 without using them. that's 16 turns... I gave up maybe 50 shots of S8 AP-3 3 damage. FACE. PALM.
Game 4 vs Tyranids
Great opponent, closely matched game. The mistake here was enjoying the chat and having fun instead of playing quickly. We got to the middle of turn 4 but had to roll back to the end of turn 3 as there wasn't time for him to complete T4. All his nids were out of synapse and starting to flee, I had just snatched the relic, just charged his warlord with chaplain+terminators and although it wasn't guaranteed, I was in a really strong place to win.
Highlight: Smashing Old One Eye into giblets with Thunder Hammers.
Game ended turn 3.
Me: 9vp
Nids: 15vp
Play turns 1 and 2 faster!!!
RUH ROH SHAGGY!
Game 5 vs T'au
This Tau player had struggled and been tabled a couple of times. Never played Tau before but I know the rules... shoot the drones first! He had -1 or -2 to hit on practically everything which was tricky.
He'd put 500 points into Crisis suits who just got blown off the board every game because he didn't defend them with enough drones... had 3 Ghostkeels who did... okay. Their shooting really isn't as scary as they look on the table.
He won the Eternal War and got slay the warlord. I won maelstrom and kill points.
Highlight: remembering to use my terminators' Teleport Homer to zip across the board and snatch a 2vp objective marker I had deployed it near in setup.
Lowlight - Stealth suits killed my unharmed venerable dread in overwatch! 8 wounds in overwatch!!! TWICE IN FIVE GAMES!
Me: 20vp
Tau: 16vp
This sergeant was pretty pleased when the First Company teleported in right next to him, just before he was overrun.
I won a game! Woo! In 8th edition I am now: 9 losses, 1 win. Haha.
Lessons learned:
1. Vanguard vets and librarians coming out of a raven in the middle of the enemy are asking to get battered. They are just 1w 3+ save things that die very, very fast. However, Thunder Hammers and Power Fists are amazing.
2. Always advance your character FIRST and accompanying unit SECOND. Otherwise you get situations where the unit advances 6" and the character advances 1" and is stuck in the open.
3. Rules mistake - one opponent parked his Knight on Objective 3 which was on a raised hill/plateau style terrain - I couldn't charge it as there was no place to put a model near it. After the match a spectator pointed out that vehicles can't climb terrain in 8th!
tl;dr (not surprised) - 8th is awesome. My list was mid-table. Stormravens are strong.
