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I went to Templecon's Onslaught tournament this weekend with the following goals:
1. Don't lose all 5 games like I did last year.
2. Play a simple army that prevents me from losing games due to user error. I just tried to table every opponent which surprising worked out ok & let me ignore mission objectives.
3. Play an army that will cause my turns to be quick so that I can finish all my games & have time to go play all the other convention games. This way even if I lose all my games again, I will still have time & energy to hang out with non-40k playing friends.

With these goals in mind, I painted a TWC list about 5 months ago & began practicing. Usually I play about 100 games a year, but this last year saw my local gaming group switch to MTG & my work schedule prevent me from getting to my FLGS very much so last year I only played about 50 games & have not had much exposure to SerpantSpam, AdLance, SummoningFarm, etc. etc.

My List:

ThunderLord with Krakensword & shield + 2 wolves
ThunderLeader with PF & shield + 2 wolves
Harald Deathwolf + 2 wolves (I brought him because I didn't know if the TOs would allow Str10 TWC. His Furious Charge would hopefully settle that in most instances. The TOs turned out allowing Str10 in any case.)
Rune Priest on a bike, choose Biomancy every game.
2 Iron Priests with TH. No cyberwolves because I'm too lazy to differentiate between 4+ & 6+ saves on Fenrisian Wolves. And I want my characters in challenges because I'm using the Champions of Fenris supplement.
2 Units of TWC, PF & SS, WC & SS, Chainsword & SS
Void Claws with missile launcher
Stormwolf with MM & Lascannons



Game 1 vs Brian F.
Brian ran a really interesting Space Marine list with:
Tigirius & scouts for Invis
Pedro for +1 attack
Chaplain for Zealot, might have been a named Chaplain, but I don't recall.
10 Scouts in a Land Raider with all those characters
2 rhinos with tac squads
2 Dev squads with all lascannons
3 MM attack bikes

I did not take any good pics of the entire board, but pretty much everything is happening along his board edge.

These two photos only make sense if you compare to the first photo from this game to see how they fit together.

I split my two groups in order to run two parallel lines down the Hammer & Anvil deployment. He castled up.
I thought I would tie up his deathstar unit & allow my other unit to run up & then dismantle itself into all the separate characters who could run around destroying stuff.

That's pretty much what happened, except that his Deathstar unit had Invis for two game turns & turned out crushing the TWC with Harald & the Battle Leader running away after rolling a Ld 11.

The Battle Leader ran back to claim an objective & Harald ran around the unit to go after a rhino. He wiffed.

His LR killed the Battle Leader & his death star turned around & came after my other unit. My other unit had successfully gutted his backfield, & I probably should have just run away from his at this point, but he was winning on objective points so I tried to mess around a bit, but to no avail.

Overall this was a great game, but I got smacked around by the Invisibility stick. It was really neat to see a deathstar scout squad!

Game 2 vs. George T.
George ran Adamantium Lance with 2 dread knights, GK Libby & Termies

I had no idea how to handle the Lance formation so I just charged everything into it. And died.

Left side of the board,

right side of the board. Vanguard deployment.

I suppose I should have tried killing off all the GK stuff & going after objectives, but I had never faced 3 knights before. I killed two & tied up the other with the Void Claw terms, but the explosions from the dying knights killed off most of my army & the last knight killed off everything else. I did have a chance to tank some wounds from a dread knights flamer with Harald's Mantle of the Ice Troll, but that was pretty much the highlight of the game. I got tabled, but the game was so quick that I was able to go play other games.

Game 3 vs. Mark H.
Mark is a really nice guy & I was happy to play him. We were both playing at table 20 at this point & had no more games that day so we could just relax. Mark ran:
Space Wolves with Sisters
Ulrik in a Stormwolf with Grey Hunters
2 rhinos with Blood Claws and/ or Grey Hunters, 1 empty rhino
ThunderCav with 1 character? plus Sisters of Battle priest to reroll saves
1 rhino with sisters squad
1 drop pod & 3 lone wolves in terminator armor & SS + …I forget what weapons. Combi meltas?
Saint Celestian for Hit & Run


This game came down to one dice roll that Mark, and this is an indication of how chill he is, could have rerolled due to being cocked, but choose not to.

What happened was that one of my TWC units with all the characters charged his TWC & was just too much for his unit. My other unit ran around claiming/ contesting objectives the best it could. He mishaped a Lone Wolf early that let me put it in the far left corner. Anyhow, the dice roll happened during his turn 3 when he rolled for reserves (Ulrick + GHs in Stormwolf). He rolled a two, but it was cocked on a template. He just let it ride as a 2 without rerolling, and that gave me time to wipe out enough of his army that by turn 4, there was not much he could do to overcome my army.






Saint Celestian made a comeback & his lone wolves ran around a bit, but I turned out killing most of his army for my first win.


Game 4 vs. Chris S.
This game was epic in a TWC vs. TWC + White Scars kind-of-way.
Chris was another really nice guy with an amazing army. The conversions & paint job were awesome. Chris ran:
Khan on Moondrakken
Chapter Master on Bike with Shield Eternal & Thunder Hammer
3 squads of bikers, 1 with Grav, 1 with melta, and the other had melta or grab, I forget
Skyclaws
Blood Claws in a drop pod
Blood Claws in a rhino
Thundercav 3 or 4
Iron Priest on TWC
Battle Leader or Lord with Axe of Black Death
Fenrisian Wolves

Relic Mission

This list intrigued me because I had thought of changing my list to a White Scars biker & TWC medley also. I had even painted up a Khan conversion & bought bikers on eBay, but just didn't have time to play test.

So I don't really understand why this game turned out the way it did, but I think it came down to a couple of factors.

Chris won the roll to deploy/go first. He thought about scouting for about half a second & then let me go first. I'm glad that I had considered running Khan & knew the factor making his decision; he wanted to be able to charge turn 1.


So I deepstruck my Void Claws turn 1 to act as a speed bump in order to give me time to grab the relic.

Then I made some decisions that may or may not have been smart. I broke my units into 4 groups:
-TWC unit to go after relic
-other TWC to prevent a charge from my left flank + Iron Priest
-Battle Leader hung back to take up space from pod dropping in
-All the other characters hung back to countercharge

On his turn 1, his grav unit annihilated the termies with gusto. Then he shot at the TWC by the relic. Now that I think about it, I think he shot at me; not charged, but I could be wrong.
But something big happened. I failed my leadership! The TWC fell back & were too far for him to charge!

That allowed me to charge him on the top of turn 2.

I fully expected to get creamed, but my storm shields saved the day against his bikes. In making my list, I had considered that I had too many storm shields, but this game confirmed that I was ok putting shields on everything. It also helped that I had characters in each squad who were able to challenge, and get preferred enemy in those challenges. He hit & ran out.

We had gutted each other in that big combat, which was actually three separate CCs.

Chris charged back in with his characters, I think in order to make sure he was outnumbered & be able to use the Axe of Black Death's bonus. He had a ton of attacks, but wiffed on a lot of attacks, which let me squeak by & kill them off.


He had a sky claw make a break for the objective in case the game ended, but it didn't. My storm wolf had been busy zipping around killing off his stragglers & eventually he conceded.


Game 5 vs. Chris B.
My final game was against the Tyranid formation with all the flying Monstrous Creatures.
I'm not familiar with Nids, but my best guess is that he had:
3 Flyrants, 2 with guns, 1 with CC weapons
2 Crones
2 Harpies
2 Malantropes?? Whatever those floating heads are who give out shrouding?
3 units of reoccurring gargoyles

I had NOOOOO idea how to deal with this army, but I knew in the back of my mind that I should spread out my guys in order to prevent him from flying around. I think. In any case, it never worked out that way.

Hammer & Anvil deployment, left side of the board deployment:

Right side of the board:

He flew around shooting turn 1 & killed some fenrisian wolves.

Then he vector struck around for a couple of turns while my TWC ran under his flyers & killed off this Gargoyles & Malantropes.

My Stormwolf did not do much & died after one or two turns.

Ultimately I had no clue how to handle his army & it didn't help that I only had 1 missile launcher terminator & a Stormwolf. He won big.

Tournament Summary & Unit Analysis
Goals:
1. Won 2 games, both big fun wins, had 5 cool opponents.
2. Don't think I played my army incorrectly. May have played missions unwisely, but that is no news.
3. Finished every game in about 1.5 hours except for the one against Mark, which was cool because we spent as much time talking as playing.

Units:
Wolf Lord on TWC with Krakensword & SS A+
Preferred enemy in challenges at Initiative 5? Yes please. Combine in unit with other characters in order to choose who challenges when? Sweet.

Battle Leader on TWC with PF & SS A+
Same as above

Harald Deathwolf B/B+*
Furious charge would have been necessary if TOs had not ruled TWC Str10, but that was not necessary. Stubborn conferred to other units? HUGE factor in giant combat during game 4. Otherwise not so great, especially when he died to Imperial Knight's explosion during game 2. If it was not for that Instant Death, I might feel better about him. *Being able to use Mantle of the Ice Troll shenegans against flamer that game bumps him up to B+

Rune Priest on a bike C
I'm lousy at knowing which psychic powers to choose during deployment. I brought him because in some ambiguous way I thought he would protect me from psychic shreek or invisibility, but I don't know what I was thinking. He would probably have been better if I knew which powers table to roll on better.

2 TWC units of 3 guys each, all SS, PF, Wolfclaw & 1 chainsword A+
Rolled saves all weekend long! Having two of these units won game 4 for me.

2 Iron priests A
Great because they allow me to take the formation which gives the above unit WS 5. Really wish they had a better InvSv, but geeeeesh that's just asking too much!

Stormwolf B
Hmmmmm. This is a toughy. Great to have a flyer to zip around and punk stuff with his MMs & PotMS Str6 AP3 template. But cannot confuse him with anti-air. He can deal with one flyer, but against Nids he had no chance. I also need to learn better maneuvering strategies for him so there doesn't come some magic moment when I get charged after hovering for some dumb reason.


Wolf Guard Void Claws w/ Cyclone Missile Launcher C-
Didn't do much other than stand around. Probably could have played more aggressively with them, but they didn't contribute much. They did tie up an Imperial Knight in combat for 3 turns, but that was more due to lousy CC & stomp rolls. Reroll for reserves was helpful once, but not necessary for the overall list.

Future Changes to List:
I want to drop the Rune Priest & Void Claws formation because I just don't have the number of games necessary to figure out the best psychic powers to use in the myriad different scenarios that arise.

Find a way to deal with Invisibility & Flyers:
Invis: Ignore whatever madness has it & go claim objectives… so maybe some Objective Secured units? Allies?
Flyers: Add more guns, if only to cause more grounding checks by Flying Monstrous Creatures.

Thanks for reading & thanks to Sam & Keith for a great tournament.

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