Monday, December 15, 2014

Tournament: Night one


If you were a regular reader of daemons40k you might remember that I was in the middle of a league.  Well last week we were bracketed into a single elimination tournament.  Our points were increased to 1250, up from 750, and I brought most every Fallen Angels model I own.  Things turned out hilarious and slightly enlightening.



Here is the list I brought.  I didn't expect for it to be competitive in any sense of the word, and I didn't really care.  At this points level I had to bring every model I own for this army with the exception of a few HQ's.

Dark Apostle: VotLW

5 Chosen: 2 plasma guns, VotLW
Rhino: Havoc Launcher

5 Chosen: 2 melta guns, VotLW
Rhino: Havoc Launcher

12 Chosen: melta bombs, power weapon

5 Terminators: combi-flamer, powerfist, chainfist

Helbrute: twin-linked lascannon

Predator: all lascannons

3 Bikes: plasma gun, VotLW

The plan was for the Dark Apostle to be in the large blob of chosen, they would all charge hilariously down the field, and most likely get massacred by whatever was shooting at them.  Everything else would take potshots at whatever I could, and that would be that.

Game 1: Dark Eldar (2 Objectives, Dawn of War)

Archon: Shadowfield, (some weapon I don't remember)
2 Medusas
Venom

3 raiders with 10 warriors
Raider with a squad of wracks and a Haemonculus

Ravager

3 bikes: heat lance
6 bikes: heat lance


Turn 1:
I move everything up, immobilize one of his transports, and not much else since I is hidden pretty well.
He responds by flanking me with the small squad of bikes, moving the big squad of bikes up the center, and opening up both of my transports.

Turn 2:
My terminators land between his big squad of bikes and a couple of his transports.  I move my two small squads of chosen into cover (since I know he doesn't have grenades).  The big squad of chosen moves up close enough to counter-assault if he decides to charge me, and the helbrute comes along for support.  My shooting takes out a couple of bikes and forces several of his transports to jink.
He moves his bikes back to block a potential charge on the transports, but he decides not to charge me since the helbrute will be close enough to charge next turn.  He small squad of bikes takes two hullpoints off of my predator, and general shooting killed a bunch of marines.

Turn 3:
My terminators move forward and get ready to charge the bikes, the helbrute moves up and the big squad of chosen moves back to get the bikes in double tap range.  The helbrute blows up the archon's transport, one of the medusas dies, and they end up sitting in cover.  His small squad of bikes is wiped out by some serious bolter action from the large squad of chosen.  My terminators charge his bikes, and the helbrute decides to go after the archon and he actually makes the seven inch charge through cover!  The terminators only kill one bike (derp!), but he manages to fail his hit and run roll, so we stay locked in combat.  I lose one terminator in return.  My helbrute brings the pain and manages to kill both the archon and the bodyguard despite the 2+ invuln save on the archon.
His wracks and Haemonculi pop out of their transport and charge into the terminators, the Ravager pops the helbrute, and combat saw me win by one (I lost another terminator) with the bikes fleeing.

Turn 4:
I move my stuff back to control my objective and preventing him from charging me to get linebreaker.  I kill a few of the wracks, but my terminators are wiped out in the process.
He moves around, kills a few more marines with shooting, but nothing significant happens.

The game is called with 5 min to go.
We both had our objectives, he had first blood, and I had slay the warlord.  My opponent gave me the victory because he was running on 3 hours of sleep and didn't have the energy to play the second game.

My helbrute was the star of this match.  90% of the time I run a helbrute it doesn't do much, but this time it made up for all of the other bad matches.




Game 2: Daemons (3 Objectives, Vanguard Strike)

Great Unclean One: ML 2 (biomancy)
Nurgle Daemon Prince: wings, balesword
Nurgle Daemon Prince: wings, balesword

3 Nurgling bases
3 Nurgling bases

Flesh hounds: Karnak

Soulgrinder: Large blast

I looked at his army and just laughed.  "I am so screwed" were my exact words.

Turn 1:

He moves everything forward, misses with his large blast, and rolls a 4 on the warpstorm table (-1 to his invuln save)

I move right up next to the flesh hounds, unload everything, and kill half of them thanks to his reduced save.  I force jinks on the two daemon princes, but I don't cause any wounds.

Turn 2:

He moves up again.
His warpstorm table rolls Wrath of Khorne, hits three of my units, and manages to kill two of my bikers.
He charges my big squad of chosen with the remaining flesh hounds and one of the daemon princes, and kills all but two who run away and end up off the board.  He attempts to charge my helbrute with his other daemon prince, fails the charge, and gets a wound from the overwatching lascannon.

My terminators land by his back nurglings and soulgrinder, and the rest of my army shuffles around.
I kill a few more flesh hounds with shooting, as well as a couple of nurgling bases.
I charge his daemon prince with my hellbrute, he does one hull point, and I insta-kill him.

Turn 3:

Once again the Great Unclean one does not come in.
He shuffles around, does 2 wounds to karnak with the warpstorm table, and charges one of my rhinos and the remaining bike.  The soulgrinder also decides to go after my terminators.
The rhino gets wrecked, and the bike dies horribly; however, the terminators only lose one model, and I manage to do one hull point in return, so we stay locked in combat.

I shuffle around as well, and I don't think I kill anything with shooting.
My helbrute charges the other daemon prince, and insta-kills him too!  The terminators also decide to roll like bosses, making two invuln saves, and doing two hull points in return.

Turn 4:

His Great Unclean One finally comes in, but immediatly mishapps, and I place baby in the corner.
Karnak and the remaining two hounds wreck the predator, and I finish off the soulgrinder after he wiffs his attacks.

I finish off the hounds and one of the squads of nurgling on my turn, and we call it a game.

Daemon princes scare the shit out of me.  Whenever I face them they tend to break up my army.  This was a complete surprise.  Once again the helbrute got MVP, but the terminators got a close second for managing to take down the soulgrinder.  Monstrous Creatures always give me trouble, and I had never considered the helbrute to be a bastion of power, but he really saved the day.

14 comments:

  1. Nice work! I don't think Nurgle lists are really all that scary anymore, but it was definitely built to be competitive whereas you just built what you had, so good job winning that one. Without any grimoires or invsibility in his list, Daemon Princes and khorne hounds die a lot more quickly than people sometimes think. 4 T5 wounds is not a lot even with a 2+ cover.

    On another note - you can only put 10 men into a Chosen squad.

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    1. Really? Gah, I thought they were like normal CSM squads.

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    2. Yep. Just double-checked my codex to be sure but the standard squad is 5 and you can take up to 5 more.

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  2. Hearing about your Helbrute being the MVP made me laugh! Like you said, whenever I bring one they never do much, if anything. Actually when I bring one, my friends know immediately I'm playing for lulz.

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    1. Most of the time my opponent ignores it because it does so little, but that just means I get a twin linked lascannon that can shoot with impunity.

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    2. Well, I may have just disqualified myself from the rest of this tournament....

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    3. Will they let you just downsize the Chosen squad to 10 if you come forward and tell them it was an honest mistake? I'm sure those 2 extra Chosen aren't going to make or break a whole lot anyways so it wouldn't put you at too huge of a disadvantage.

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    4. Not sure, things are pretty friendly.

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  3. Also, Helbrutes (or any dreadnought walkers) are terrific counters to Daemon Princes. DPs don't have good enough strength to puncture AV12 without using smash. Even then they only get a single attack to pin all their hopes of explosions on. If they don't get an explosion they're pretty much guaranteed to get instant deathed unless they have roll hacks on their saves.

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  4. It's a dice game... ;-)
    Last Saturday I had a 2Vs2 game Eldar-DarkEldar Vs Imperial guard&Grey Knights and I could not believe how much my dice were cold... The most incredible action was when my Wraithguard leaded by the Archon, deepstriked near their really expansive GK (armor save 2+, inv save, fnp, psionic instant death weapons etc...) thinking that I would have seriously damaged them, if not destroyed, thanks to my 5 glorious S4 AP 2 template weapons.I was thinking I was a smart player, even because the GK were invisible, but I was shooting at them aiming at the Imperial Guard's men sitting just behind them. Sadly for my poor dead-Eldar he saved all the 11 wounds with his invulnerable saves (and one with his FNP). Since that moment on (it was turn 2) we tried to destroy that single unit of Grey Knight, because it was so unfair letting them survive. They should have died, they survived just for some near impossible dice throws. And this is how we lost the game. I should have ignored them and focus on the objective of the game (it was a maelstorm mission) despite trying to kill an hated units (that obviously survived till the end!)
    Yes, I have rolled an incredible amount of "1" but at the end the game ended 6-8, so maybe we could have managed to draw with just some better positioning. And this is what I have learned this week.
    :-)

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  5. Doesn't a nurgle daemon prince get T6 and therefore not inst-killabke?

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    1. No. Daemon of Nurgle does not confer +1T. It gives shrouded and slow and purposeful.

      You're thinking of Mark of Nurgle in the CSM codex which confers +1T. But even Daemon Princes in the CSM codex take a "Daemon of..." upgrade rather than a mark so they don't get T6 either.

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    2. In many situations the shrouded is better that T6 since a flying daemon prince of nurgle will get a 2+ jink save; however, this does mean that they are still scared of S10 in close combat.

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  6. Nurgle princes really need iron arm, and then they become pretty competitive. The 2+ jink save is fine and dandy but being T5 means they need additional support. Without psychic buffs they can have problems. Once you bolt on iron arm though, they are a serious force to be reckoned with. Take ML3 and roll 3 times on biomancy and hope you net IA.

    That is cool your 'take what I got' list is doing well. People read about net lists and what is king of the hill in the competitive paradigm but people forget this is still a game of tactics and luck. You won the first game due to adversarial sleepiness :) You won the second game I would think largely because your opponent's 200+ pt great unclean one didn't get to play. This reduced him down to really 4 threatening units, of which half were unbuffed demon princes which are susceptible to a good power-fisting :) So I say well played! I hope you win this tourney with your fun-list :)


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