Friday, April 15, 2016

Weekend League: Update



After a few weeks of games our impromptu league has a champion.

Here are some images from one of my recent games:

VS Drew (Astra Militarium)

We both brought similarly static gun lines, but my army was a bit more maneuverable








I ended up winning because I was better at going after objectives.  We both took a pounding, and were about even in kill points.  Don't forget to play the mission.



Phil and his war convocation have beaten every opponent (though some games have been pretty close).  Now we are into the challenge phase.  Next week I will have finished administering state assessment exams, so Phil and I are going to celebrate by mashing armies and drinking heavily.

Here is the list I am planning on bringing:

Be'Lakor
Daemon Prince: Nurgle, Greater gift x2, Epidemia, Wings

Beast of Nurgle: x6

Horror: x11
Horror: x11

Daemon Prince: Exalted Gift, Greater Gift, Wings, Grotti the Nurgling
Nurglings

I have about 50 points of breathing room at the moment, and before anyone asks I am bringing the beasts of nurgle because I only have 3 plague drone models.  I might try to force in some flamers they always do well for me.

The idea behind this list is that a combination of invulnerable saves and cover saves is going to negate much of the potential damage from grav destroyers.  I still have to worry about quite a bit of other shooting, but I can ignore three squads of destroyers.  He has the option to run up to try and flame me, but I welcome such an opportunity.

To engage my opponent I plan on keeping Be'Lakor up in the air to cast buffs and use psychic scream.  Invisibility will go on anyone that gets charged by the knight, but will probably be aimed at the grimoire prince otherwise.  Grotti will help with the high toughness destroyers, and bring ruststalkers an infiltrators down to toughness two.  If I can instakill with strength four, then combat is going to be a breeze.

I have a feeling that this game is going to be dramatic.

30 comments:

  1. Hmmm I need a little more info. What points are you guys playing at? Unfortunately I have 0 experience against admech/skitari but I have played hundreds of games with the exact list you described (minus the horrors. mononurgle and all). For example I have seen a lot of situations where having msu dogs is better than a pack of them etc. Also remember a jinking belakor is a snap shotting belakor so no shriek. I prefer to lock him up in combats he is guaranteed to win asap and he can still buff units 24" if I recall. You almost have a rotswarm there too BTW

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are at 1650 for points.

      The war convocation has 3 units of grav destroyers, a unit of infiltrators and rust stalkers, an imperial knight, 3 drop pods, Dunecrawler, dragoon, and a dominus. I am probably forgetting something.

      Most of his shooting is good at ignoring armor saves, but I can't think of anything that ignores cover.

      Thanks for the tip with Be'Lakor. I haven't used him in a long time.

      Delete
    2. If he has no way of ignoring cover you may almost want to keep Be'lakor on the ground to make use of his more than ample close combat abilities. He's got a 2+ cover save from jink with his Shrouded rule and it's just one more unit your opponent has to choose from between him and the Daemon Princes.

      Delete
    3. I always think of him as a source for psychic buffs, and manage to forget that he can wreck things in close combat.

      Delete
    4. If you have big balls you can own that knight with him in CC pray for no 6 :)

      Delete
    5. I'd have to know that knight is almost dead before charging him with Be'lakor. On the one hand, his WS9 means the Knight hits on fives. On the other hand... if he rolls a 6 on the D chart you're straight up dead. Even if he doesn't you could be in for a hurt. Be'lakor, like all DPs, only has 4 wounds so even a normal wound with the D-weapon can kill him outright. Same with stomps.

      Delete
    6. The knight is a low priority target. Ideally, I will summon some crap to hold him up.

      Delete
    7. Actually Belakor has eternal warrior, no 6's and he can tank on with his 4+ invuln!

      Delete
    8. What are the intiatives of his units? I always use my msu beasts and nurglings to blind grenade the crap out of 4 init and lower enemies. Adds more time in the game, but sometimes the payoff is huge.

      Delete
    9. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    10. Eternal Warrior doesn't help at all with 6s on the D chart... it doesn't cause instant death. It causes 6 wounds +D6 (which no saves can be used against).

      And all it takes is one or two other destroyer hits and he'll probably die if he doesn't have great save rolls.

      Delete
    11. Lol I guess that's why Rose said you gotta have some big balls. Or in my case I like to get risky and look for hot dice.

      Delete
  2. You should add in a new Renegade Knight. It's cool that they can use all the guns now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Soo.... pretty funny game that happened to me this weekend. Played a 2k Maelstrom mission with one of my buddies. He went with his Eldar and played a Guardian spam list plus 3 squads of Avengers (in transports), 2 squads of fire dragons (in Falcons), 1 squad Warp Spiders, artillery batteries, 3 war walkers with scatters, and 3 vypers with scatters. I went with a CSM list with genestealer allies:
    Genestealer Cult (~30 or so models)
    Dark Apostle (Cultist formation)
    20 plague zombies
    20 plague zombies
    Typhus
    5 x plague marines (2x melta, combi-melta)
    7 x plague marines (2x plasma, combi-plasma)
    3 x obliterators
    Landraider

    Idea was this would create a lot of hard-to-kill bodies and the Apostle in the LR with the 7 plague marines would march up rezzing zombies as I went. Only we rolled the long deployment zones which screwed me from the word go. Zombies had to stay in the backfield and hold the objectives so they couldn't march up with my team. Luckily my Patriarch infiltrated and killed his farseer turn 1 (he didn't have him in a squad) and the two purestrain genestealers wiped out the batteries. From there it was all downhill. We rolled the Maelstrom mission where you get 1 card per turn for every objective you control and for the first few turns I had 4 and he had 0 because of my speed so I was racking up points (was up like 11-2 at one point). But he was progressively tabling me because Eldar S6 gun spam is ridiculous. My only hope by turn 5 was that Typhus could stay locked in combat and the game would end before I got tabled because I was up in points. Well... Typhus was in an assault in a challenge and he easily destroyed the enemy character which forced me to roll on the Gift of Mutation table.... I rolled a 21 which meant Typhus was turned into a Chaos Spawn and was no longer locked in combat. Apparently the Chaos Gods were displeased with me for losing and took out their anger on Typhus.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oof sounds like a rough game.

    I am interested in seeing the genestealer cult in action. More specifically, I want to see it paired with an army capable of charging on turn 2.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah... I think it has potential even though it didn't perform the greatest for me this game. The Purestrain Genestealers and Patriarch are amazing surprise troops for taking out vehicles or a key unit turn 1 almost guaranteed (if you're going first at least). If you roll invisibility on the Patriarch he'd be even more potent because then they might survive the ensuing fire. My issue with them this game was the long deployment zones coupled with playing Eldar. He could move back 6" from me each turn, shoot me, and then run another full 6" away after shooting... I couldn't even assault turn 2 and I started 18" from his army.

      IMO the best combo would be the khorne detachment from the Curse of the Wulfen. I was planning on running that alongside them before the new CS/BL stuff came out. Genestealer Cult + 40 flesh hounds (8 squads of 5) and a herald runs you ~1360 points depending on what you do with the herald. With the new Renegade knights you could close out that list with one Knight and a squad of furies (to fill out the full daemonic incursion detachment requirement). In an 1850 point game that would be over 70 models in your opponents face before deployment is even over and a dakka knight to back them up.

      Delete
    2. 1850 list:
      Murderhoarde
      Herald (exalted locus, lesser reward, juggernaut)
      8 squads: Flesh Hounds x 5
      Chaos Furies x 6
      Renegade Knight (gatling cannon, thermal cannon)
      Genestealer Cult

      Delete
    3. I usually keep a Dark Apostle with Typhus so I can reroll the boon table. It is important. The reroll to hit first turn of combat is great for him too especially if you get full daemon weapon swings.

      I especially hate long table games as CSM sometimes I just concede lol. At least daemons can deep strike in. I do think that genestealer cult formation is great though, especially if you can get a turn 2 charge in from an ally.

      For a dakka knight would it be better to have 2 avenger Gatling cannons or 2 rapid fire battle cannons?

      Delete
    4. I guess the answer to that depends on what you're playing. If you're constantly playing horde style lists then go with the two rapid fire battle cannons. You'll rip apart squads.

      If you usually play marines or have to deal with MCs, then go with the Gatling cannons. 12 shots shreds Tyranid/Daemon MCs and can even get a few wounds on a Wraithknight sometimes.

      I'm going to use the melta cannon because I like the anti-tankness of it and my friend plays a lot of Grey Knights so it will roast his terminators, but if you want true dakka I'd just take one rapid fire and one gatling. That way it doesn't matter if you're up against hordes or against slightly tougher units - you'll always have one gun.

      Delete
    5. What would you recommend for fighting tau, a wraithknight, another imperial knight, scatbike, and venom spam on pretty much a monthly basis?

      Delete
    6. Hmmm... That is a good question. Maybe one of each? The gatling cannon is sure to put a dent in those venoms and a few other units if they are spread out. But the Rapid Fire Cannon is always good as well...

      I'm using both the Knights in the box and giving one the aforementioned melta cannon/gatling cannon loadout so he can split between tanks/2+ armor saves and bigger hordes. The second Knight I think I'm just going to leave with the chainsword and the fist so because a) it looks cool b) it's really cheap and c) it would make him a monster in CC against other Knights, Wraithknights, or just about any MC or superheavy vehicle.

      Delete
    7. Yeah against a wraithknight maybe leaving on a melee weapon is a good idea? Which is better the sword or the fist?

      Delete
    8. Against a Wraithknight, the sword is better. Both the sword and gauntlet are Strength D, AP2. The gauntlet gets to "hurl" if you kill it but only if you kill a MC or vehicle. You can't hurl super-heavies or gargantuans. On top of that, it is initiative one. So you would never want to use it against something that might be able to kill you first or against something you can't hurl. The upside to leaving both the sword and fist on is you get to choose which you use and you should get the +1 attack for two weapons unless there is some rule about that not working for super-heavies that I haven't read.

      Delete
  5. I know this is off topic but there is a good ITC article about the new demon incursion detachment and using fateweaver to make strong use out of the warp storm table. Maybe it is worth a check on the probability mathhammer presented in the article :P

    http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/04/17/chaos-daemons-breaking-the-warp-storm-table-karios-style/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah saw that one. TBH after playing with the incursion detachment so far it has so many strengths that I don't usually even consider a CAD anymore. Especially now that you can take a renegade knight in its own formation slot. The detachment just offsets so much of the penalty for playing daemons.

      Delete
    2. The unit counts are very annoying though. I think if they rule on how drive by corruption works in favor of allowing it it will be the go to formation. then again, they may regret it considering screamers can cover 36" a turn in 2 moves :P

      Delete
    3. The screamer formation is weak for 9 msu screamers. It should be allowed. The brb clearly states moving onto an objective means you control it regardless of phase. I think if you can identify an objective then you are controlling it.

      Delete
    4. What I want to know is how they rule who "controls" the objective due to the Daemonic Corruption rule. The brb clearly states that units can only control one objective at a time, but it's unclear from Daemonic Corruption whether the unit moved over it is considered the one controlling it, or whether it's just yours. Because that changes whether one unit can move over multiple or not.

      Delete
    5. Also, other than the fact that you can just spam so many SCreamers, they actually got worse due to the formation imo. You have to be careful about who you bladevane because you'll just give them FnP now...

      Delete
    6. Agree Threllen. Also when you read corruption it says that the marker counts as controlled until claimed by an opponent. If my screamers sit on it even while its corrupted and a scoring (not ObSec) unit moves up they don't contest it because my screamers are holding it. If they move away the screamers are no longer holding it, it is simply corrupted and now that enemy unit has claimed it.

      I know people are arguing about it but I feel it seems a pretty simple special rule. It is simply held because of you know, chaos and corruption while your unit moves on to corrupt more stuff. Still an FAQ would simplify it.

      Delete