Hobby-side,
I've put in some serious work during the two weeks prior to the
tournament, but still failed to get
everything done on time. I managed to
convert, assemble, and paint a pair of sergeants (combimelta &
combiflamer), a plasma cannon marine, and a multimelta attack bike,
as well as assemble and prime a pair of vindicators.
I also
had a painting misshap with a Vallejo paint. My beasty brown got
plugged up and I couldn't be arsed to get a needle or a clip to
properly unplug it, and instead attempted to bully it into dishing
out some paint. I ended up spraying a whole lot of brown all over my
wall, curtains, hands, palette, shirt, face, and hair. Miraculously,
very little of the explosion has affected the models I've been
painting at the time, and none of it has gotten into my eyes. This is
the second time I've done this to myself (there's still a silver
smear on the wall from the first time), so
fuck me sideways. Thankfully, I had cans of white and black spraypaint, so I managed to fix the worst of the damage. As for the curtains, eh...
Tournament
was the standard 3 battle, 1850 pts format with rulebook missions. My
list:
STEEL
SLAYERS STRIKEFORCE:
Brother
Manfred, Librarian – terminator, storm shield, vortex of doom, null
zone
Tactical
Squad "Red" – meltagun, combimelta, plasma cannon, rhino
Tactical
Squad "Yellow" – flamer, combiflamer, plasma cannon,
rhino
Tactical
Squad "Green" – flamer, combiflamer, plasma cannon, rhino
5
x Hammernators – land raider godhammer with multimelta
2
x Multimelta Attack Bikes, squadroned
Brother
Hanz, Dreadnought – 2x tl-autocannon
Vindicator
– dozer blade
Vindicator
– dozer blade
Predator
– lascannon sponsons
TOTAL:
1850 pts
Shooting
& flexibility is the name of the game. The LR with termies &
libby looks like a deathstar, but it's actually a
counter-attack/support element. I think target saturation is pretty
sick in this one (do you go for the "deathstar", the two
pieplate tossing tanks, the attack bikes that are about to blow up
your expensive vehicles, or the six combat squads that are having fun
with the objectives?), which combined with some proper positioning
makes it hard to take down the AV13/14 vehicles. This list doesn't
like KP missions, but then I guess most vanilla armies don't. It also
has no anti-flyer, which sucks, but there's not much I can do about
that until I obtain the necessary models. I had one dilemma when
writing it: should I give the libby a storm shield? In the end, I
decided to go with it because: 1) when your warlord is a T4 W2 guy
who can also instakill himself whenever he does some abracadabra,
having 2+/3++ is huge, 2) I had points to spare that I had no clue
what to do with, and 3) the modelling possibilities were just too
pimp to ignore. That being said, I'm still wondering if getting rid
of the librarian upgrades and dozer blades and getting another bike
might be an overall better idea.
FIRST
BATTLE – NENAD'S DAEMONS
As
soon as I saw his list, I knew I was screwed. It consisted of 3
flying MCs (fateweaver, a bloodthirster, and a daemon prince), two
big units of screamers, two units of 3 flamers, three units of
plaguebearers, and a soul grinder. To make matters worse, the
scenario was 12" deployment, big guns never tire. My opponent
got 3 objectives on his side of the table while I got two. I also
ended up going first, so a wasted turn of shooting for me. I deployed
in a defensive manner, making it hard for him to deep strike close
enough to hit my vindicators and land raider. However, I made a
mistake by deploying the center plasma combat squad into the open rather than
reserving them (I didn't think he'd dare deepstrike so close to them).
TURN 1:
I spread my army a bit and popped
smoke on most of my vehicles.
Wrong wave of daemons arrive. Daemon
prince, two unit of plaguebearers, and two units of flamers. Opponent
is pretty aggressive with his flamers, even placing one unit right
next to the board edge, but he rolls HIT on both scatter dice and
manages to wipe out the far left combat squad and kill 4 out of 5
marines on the other one. Daemon prince zooms off the table and into
ongoing reserves in his shooting phase.
TURN 2:
My entire army shoots at the two units
of flamers, wiping out one and reducing the other to a single model.
Attack bikes zoom in towards the faraway objectives in hopes of
delaying some of his army.
Fateweaver, bloodthirster, and two
units of screamers all arrive. Daemon prince arrives from reserve and kills an attack bike with vector strike. Then my remaining
attack bike rolls a 6 on its toughness test and gets turned into a
spawn (or, rather, dies because we didn't have a spawn model
available). Fateweaver shoots at a vindicator and blows it up. The
last remaining flamer kills one marine. Screamers, daemon prince, and
bloodthirster zoom around, with one unit of screamers moving into the
midst of my army.
TURN 3:
At this point the battle is completely
out of my hands. Manfred the Librarian and the hammernators disembark from the
land raider to assault the screamers. The rest of the
army shoot at screamers, killing a bunch, but it's not enough.
Libby & the terminators assault and almost wipe out the first
unit of screamers.
Fateweaver flies behind the remaining
vindicator, shoots it in the rear armor, and destroys it. Daemon
prince assaults the land raider, leaving it with one remaining hull
point. Bloodthirster assaults Hanz the Dreadnought, with predictable results. The other unit of screamers joins the fray, killing all of the remaining terminators,
leaving only Manfred alive.
TURN 4:
Two of my combat squad rhinos drive further
away in hopes of being able to contest some objectives, but it's a
lost cause. My remaining stuff shoots at the bloodthirster and
actually manages to kill it, gaining slay the warlord, so there's at
least that tiny victory. In the assault phase, Manfred finally
falls to mass screamers and the daemon prince finishes off the LR.
Soul grinder and the last unit of
plaguebearers arrive. Fateweaver flies after the two rhinos, blowing
one up. The combat squad inside fails its pinning test. Daemon prince
assaults the last remaining plasma cannon squad, taking the
objective.
TURN 5:
No important movements are made. I get
tabled. The opponent went on to win his next two battles and take the
tournament.
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
My anti-daemon deployment worked quite well. It's possible I could have taken no first turn damage whatsoever (or, at worst, I would've lost a rhino or two) if only I had reserved those two combat squads. As for the rest of the battle, well... I'm getting my aegis defense line this week, so hopefully I'll be able to somewhat counter those flying MCs the next time I face them.
SECOND
BATTLE – ZERG'S CHAOS MARINES
Opponent played a MEQ horde. He had
a sorcerer in terminator armor, three nurgle obliterators, two units
of 5 havocs with quad missile launchers, two units of chaos marines
with autocannons, two units of four terminators with combiplasmas and axes/fists, 30 cultists, and a unit of chosen with
combiplasmas. Scenario was the scouring, with the table quarters
deployment (or whatever the deployment where you split the table
diagonally is called), six objectives with random values. Lame randomness kicks in and my objectives end
up being worth 4, 3, and 2 points, while the ones in his deployment
zone are 3, 2, and 1 points worth. In other words, I start with a massive advantage. Opponent's warlord trait allows him to infiltrate two
units, and he decides to infiltrate the termies.
I deployed in a balanced manner. The indomitable land raider is in the middle and both of my flanks are rockrete-solid, with rhinos
serving as mobile walls. We get night fighting on first turn, which is another
bonus for me since I have a ton of searchlights and he has none. He
infiltrates both terminator units on my right flank.
TURN 1:
I fail to seize the initiative. He
advances with his army and shoots at me, but night fighting and great cover save rolls allow me to negate most of the damage.
In my turn I advance with vindicators and LR, using Hanz the dreadnought and two of my rhinos to illuminate the obliterators and
the termies. Nullzone kicks in and I wipe out the obliterators
and kill all but three of the terminators. At the end of the shooting
phase I turbo boost my rhino to give cover to my left vindicator,
while using attack bikes to give cover to the right one.
TURN 2:
Traitor termies advance and open fire,
wounding an attack bike and stunning a rhino, but fail their charge
rolls. The rest of the army shoots a whole lot but only manages to
take off a couple rhino hull points.
I keep doing the same thing as before,
moving my vindicators & LR forward while using rhinos as mobile
cover by turbo-boosting them in front of vindicators at the end of
shooting phase. The three remaining terminators are mowed down by
the attack bikes and the LR, while the closer CSM and havoc units get
mauled by shooting. I forget to turbo boost the centermost rhino back to safety,
leaving it within charge range of the cultists.
TURN 3:
More inefficient shooting from my
opponent. The center rhino is blown up and the cultists + sorcerer
assault the combat squad inside. The sergeant bravely accepts the
sorcerer's challenge and gets his grizzled veteran's ass handed to him,
resulting in the gods rewarding the sorcerer with +1 strength. The
combat squad is wiped out.
Manfred & the Hammernators charge out of the LR and close in on the cultists, hellbent on
avenging the lost combat squad. Vindicators, predator, a combat
squad, & plasma cannons shoot all over the chosen and the
cultists, killing lots. Manfred casts vortex of doom at them, but
the sorcerer deny-the-witches it. Hammernators make their charge and
their sergeant promptly accepts the sorcerer's challenge. He passes his saves and instagibs the sorcerer with a well-placed thunderhammer blow.
TURN 4:
Some movement and lots of shooting.
Nothing important happens. The cultists lose combat and flee. My
opponent decides to concede.
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
A hollow victory. Not only did my list
hardcounter his, it was basically impossible for me to lose because
of random objective values being heavily in my favor. However, I did enjoy seeing my new
vindicators demolish a bunch of traitors, while the entire slow inexorable advance of my army combined with withering firepower and good use of searchlights was really entertaining from the fluff point of
view.
THIRD
BATTLE – LUKA'S SPACE WOLVES
Luka's army consisted of three gray
hunter packs, a pimped-up wolf lord on thunderwolf, three
thunderwolves, aegis defense line with quad gun, three long fang packs with 2x lascannons and 3x missile
launchers each, and a pack of wolf guard with combiplasmas and combimeltas
in a droppod. We had one objective each, hammer and anvil deployment, standard mission special rules. I deployed defensively, in a
manner that made my vindicators and LR more or less safe from his
droppod strike. Night fighting on turn 1.
TURN 1:
Thunder wolves & the wolf lord
move forward and hide behind the central hill. Wolf guard arrive and
blow up a rhino, gaining first blood. The combat squad inside fails their pinning test and lays down to smell the daisies for awhile.
Long fangs shoot, but only manage to plink off some hull points off
other rhinos.
In retaliation, wolf guard get shot at
by most of my army and then wiped out in a hammernator charge. One
especially talented tactical marine threw a frag grenade at them,
which bounced back and hit him right in the kisser. Thankfully, he and his
buddies made their armor saves. The drop pod is destroyed. My
deployment zone is cleared of hostile presence.
TURN 2:
Long fangs detonate a rhino, and the
combat squad inside fails their pinning test and is pinned, so now I
have two combat squads dozing on the job.
At this point I realize the central
hill is frickin' huge. It's literally high enough to completely
obscure the thunderwolves and make it impossible for my tanks to fire over it. To make the matters worse, the two ruins at the sides of the
hill are both los-blocking terrain, so together with the hill they form a wall of
cant-see-shit-captain that makes my 24-48" range army totally gimp. I manage to take down some long fangs and gray hunters,
but overall I'm incapable of getting proper lanes of fire, because the only way to get within 24" of his stuff also means getting into charge range of the thunderwolves. So I drive my attack bikes forward, hoping to lure
him into charging. Hammernators & Manfred the Librarian return to
their land raider.
TURN 3:
The lure works. Thunderwolves ride
over the hill and multiple-charge the attack bikes and the pinned
tactical squad, wiping the bikes out. More shooting happens and some
of my vehicles are hurt and some tactical marines killed, but those are all expected casualties.
Hammernators disembark while Manfred
remains safe inside the land raider, or so he hopes. Once again, I'm
unable to do any efficient shooting because things are either out of
LOS or out of range. Hammernators charge into the fray, killing all
thunderwolves and leaving only the wolf lord with two wounds left.
TURN 4:
Opponent gets a whole lot of good
rolls with his long fangs and blows up my land raider and the last
rhino, also immobilizing a vindicator. Manfred takes a wound from the
explosion. I get abysmal rolls with my terminators, failing to
inflict a single wound on his wolf lord even with nullzone. He then kills two of them.
Manfred runs for cover behind the hill
and joins with the one remaining tactical marine leftover from one of
the combat squads. The vindicator moves up on top of the hill and
vaporizes a unit of gray hunters who were trying to reach my table
half. Hammernators finally beat the wolf lord to death.
TURN 5:
The other gray hunter pack, after
camping for 3-4 turns behind a LOS-blocking ruin, come out of the
ruin and gun-down Manfred and the tactical marine to death. Long fangs
blow up the last vindicator.
I shoot all but two of the gray hunters to
death. My tacticals are too far to reach the opponent's deployment
zone and get linebreaker. We roll for the 6th turn, but
the game ends with a 5-4 score for my opponent, due to first
blood.
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
This was the most annoying game of 6th
I've played so far. It really showcases how much oversized,
los-blocking terrain can render the game unplayable. My opponent was
a great guy, and I liked his list and was looking forward to playing
against it, but the combination of terrain, deployment, and scenario
basically made it impossible for us to duke it out the way we
would've liked. Oh well, hopefully we'll get a more fun rematch. Thankfully, most
terrain around here isn't like that.
OVERALL
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
I like this list, but I need practice with it. I also have to get that aegis line. I'm still not sure Manfred the librarian needs his storm shield so that'll require some more testing. Vortex of doom had no opportunity to shine on this tournament, but hopefully that won't be the case on the next one.
Oh and, after three tournaments, I'm confident mech is not only great, but also necessary. Vehicles
aren't too fragile in 6th. It's just that they were
frickin' indestructible in 5th ed, and that's warping
everyone's perspective. Right now, their survivability is as it
should be, and I can't imagine a good list without them.
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