Tournament report of the Dutch Fanatic

[aekold]

Last saturday the Fanatic tournament took place in leiden, Nederland and with the Dutch GT only 2 weeks away it was a great opportunity to get some practice battles.

 

i used the last I have been using the last half year:

 

belial with lightning claws

 

5 man terminator squad with apothecary/chainfist, Powerweapon Sergeant, Lighting claw, Assault cannon, Stormbolter powerfist terminator.

 

5 man squad Chainfist, Powerweapon Sergeant, Lightning Claw, assault cannon, Stormbolter powerfist

 

5 man squad Chainfist, Powerweapon Sergeant, Lightning Claw, Cyclone Missle launcher, Stormbolter Powerfist

 

5 man squad Chainfist Heavy Flamer, Lightningclaw Sergeant, 2 Lighting Claws, thunder hammer StormShield

 

Landraider Crusader (holds the last mentioned unit)

 

2 vindicators

 

1 MM HF Landspeeder

 

 

First battle was seize ground with 3 objectives and dawn of war deployment.

 

My opponent had a wonderfully converted deathkopta army and he used the elder rules to represent them. His army consisted of:

 

2 farseers, each with its own 5-man seer council.

 

3 times 3 jetbikes with a shuriken cannon

 

4 pathfinders

 

3 shining spears with exarch

 

2 fire prisms.

 

I placed the first and third objective close to eachother , towards my table edge, while he deployed the second objective in the centre and to the right of the table.

 

I deployed the cyclone and command squad with belial, while he deployed a farseer with council opposite my terminators. I don’t know if this is allowed but I let it slide. His pathfinders infiltrated close to the objective away from my terminators. In my turn everything rolled on the table with the vindicators moving up the centre to support the terminators who where going for the two objectives. The landspeeder, landraider and assault cannon squad made their way towards the pathfinders and the third objective. Shooting was severly hampered due to nightfighting so I ran the assault cannon terminators towards the pathfinders. In his turn everything turboboosted unto the table, except for the fireprisms. His fortuned seercouncil formed a line in opposite my terminators, screening the jetbikes behind it. He largely ignored the right objective and moved towards the two objectives that where guarded by my two terminator squads. His shooting failed to do any damage.

 

In my turn the landspeeder flew towards the pathfinders and incinerated 3 of them, causing them to flee. Seeing that he focused all his attention on the centre two objectives my landraider pulled away from the third objective. The assault terminators continued their run to the no abandoned objective. Other shotting saw me down 2 warlock of the fortuned seer council but nothing else.

 

He moved his shining spears and a jetbike squad to intercept the landspeeder while he flanked me with one seercouncil and shoved the other one right in front of me. His fire prisms both took down a terminator of the cyclone squad. His jetbike squad failed to scratch the landspeeder.

 

My turn was rather uneventful. I turbo boosted my speeder towards his fireprism, moved the assault cannon terminators onto the right objective. They opened fire on one of the jetbike squad, causing them to flee. The vindicators and other two terminator squad moved in position to claim the other 2 objectives and create firelanes to the seercouncils. This saw one of my vindicators dangerously exposed to a seer council. Shooting on both the councils failed horribly. 2 vindicators, 1 landraider crusader and 1 terminator squad failed to kill a single elder. The missile launcher failed to damage a fire prism.

 

He continued to push for the 2 objectives with one seercouncil destroying the exposed vindicator but this left them in to open, ready to get counter charged by the assault terminators waiting in the landraider. His shining spear attack the landspeeder but failed due to needing a 6 to hit. His fireprisms and other seer council killed another 2 terminators of the cyclone squad, leaving only the missile launcher.

 

The return assault was brutal with the landraider opening all guns on the seer council that destroyed the vindicator, killing only 1 though. The speeder jumped in melta range of a fireprism, but only managed to stun it. Belial and the terminators of the landraider joined forced and assault the seer council which at the moment consisted of the farseer and 2 warlocks. Fire of the vindicator and command squad dropped 2 members of the other seercouncil. The assault cannon squad secured the right objective and killed 2 shining spears, causing them to flee. The assault on the seer council killed two warlocks and I took no casualties in return, leaving only the farseer.

 

Options where running low for him so his turn was over rather quick. His two jetbikes squads that where guarding the fireprisms jumped on the speeder and wrecked it. The fireprism fired on the lone cyclone terminator but scattered. In combat the farseer suffered an unfortunate case of thunderhammer against the forehead and died.

 

My fifth turn consisted of mopping up the remains. The assault terminators and belial jumped abourd the landraider and parked it on one objective, while the command squad claimed the other. The missile launcher blew the turret of one fire prism while all other firepower was directed towards the remaining seercouncil, leaving only the farseer and a warlock.

 

In his final turn the prism finally killed the missile launcher terminator and his farseer and warlock tried to assault the landraider, but where unable to scratch the paint.

 

We rolled a dice and the dice decided that enough was enough. After counting the results I won 22-3.

 

In the second battle your 3 most expensive models where objectives the opponent had to destroy. Only one vehicle was allowed to ben an objective. For me this meant that the landraider, belial and my apothecary where objectives.

 

My opponent played a chaos space marine list.

 

1 nurgle daemon prince with warpfire and wing

 

1 slaanesh daemon prince with lash and wings

 

3 squads of 7 plaguemarines with meltagun, powerfist in a rhino.

 

7 lesser daemons

 

1 greater daemon

 

1 defiler

 

2 vindicators.

 

His objectives where his two princesses and the defiler.

 

The deployment was spearhead. Luckily my opponent took pictures of the battle and since one picture sais more than a thousand words, here is the deployment:

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq199/Dragon624/RankingFanaticLeiden2010Battle28.jpg

opposite this:

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq199/Dragon624/RankingFanaticLeiden2010Battle210.jpg

 

I had the first turn and moved my vindicators forward a couple of inches, knowing that I would just be in range. The speeder boosted to the left flank, gunning for the defiler. Shooting saw me blow of the cannon of one vindicator and shaking the other. I also put a wound on the nurgle prince. He moved both of his princes towards my command squad on the right while moving his rhino’s to the centre. His return fire saw a single terminator fall to the defiler’s battle cannon.

 

I my second turn the speeder jumped over a hill to get a shot at the defiler, the landraider moved towards to 2 approaching princesses, I also moved belial and the command squad back in order to stay out of charge range. Shooting saw me wreck the defiler, put 2 more wounds on the nurgle prince and 1 wound on the slaanesh prince. In his turn the greater daemon arrived near the landspeeder who combined with a plague marine squad destroyed it. His other to marine squads tried to get into melta range with the landraider but failed. His princes closed in on the command squad while his vindicator claimed one terminator. He would not have made the assault but he lashed my squad 12”! towards the princes. Assault saw him slay 3 terminators and put 2 wounds on belial and me doing nothing in return, putting him in the lead with 2 objectives to 1.

 

This turn is was all or nothing. If I didn’t kill his princesses in this turn he would move them away. The landraider moved up and the terminators inside disembarked, ready to assault either the nurgle or slaanesh prince. The Assault cannon terminators moved to intercept some plague marines. The landraider opened fire on the nurgle prince and managed to take it’s final wound. The vindicators inflicted damage on the rhino’s and then I made a small error. In my excitement I used the heavy flamer of the terminators on the slaanesh prince, causing no wounds. Than the full cyclone squad opened fire on the prince and killed it., giving me my third objective. This meant that the assault terminators had nothing to assault since I shot the flamer at the prince. If I waited with the flamer I could have assaulted the plague marines that where threatening my landraider.

 

Over the last few turns me made desperate pushes with his melta marines and vindicator for my landraider. I managed to kill the remaining plague marines, the greater daemon and immobilize the vindicator. In return he managed to destroy one vindicator, drop the three remaining terminators squads to three men each. In the final turn he got of a shot at the landraider, but he only managed to immobilze it.

 

The game ended with me having 3 objectives and he 2 and a VP difference of 700 in my advantage, earning me another 20 points.

 

The final battle was a pitched battle using the good old victory points system. I played against an imperial guard army that consisted of the following:

 

Command squad with 4 meltaguns.

 

2 veteran squad with melta’s

 

1 veteran squad with plasma guns

 

3 vendetta gunships.

 

2 squadrons of 2 leman russ battle tanks

 

1 leman russ exterminator (plasma variant)

 

I deployed first, to the centre and the right, while he deployed his tanks to the left with the vendettas in front. My first turn I rushed my raider and speeder forward with the raider popping smoke. His first turn saw him destroy the speeder with a vendetta, shaking the raider, destroy one vindicator. A small setback but not the end of the world, but then his exterminator opened fire. His template could only hit 2 terminators at a time, but when he rolled 5! Hits the cyclone squad vaporized. In my second turn the raider moved forward, squad disembarked and failed to scratch the paint on a vendetta. Form that turn on it went downhill. The assault squad was eaten by plasma/melta veterans, while the exterminator used its longer range to much terminators (not helped by the fact that his scatters where insane). In the end I only managed to kill 2 vendetta’s and half a melta squad (only 1 men standing). All I had left was an vindicator without a cannon and a landraider with a single hurricane bolter.

 

I never really had a chance against this list, especially since I couldn’t touch the exterminator.

 

He won the battle and gained 20 point, while I only gained 5.

 

Despite the defeat I received it was a very enjoyable battle and my opponent was very worried by the amount of terminators, which is always nice.

 

In hind sight I shouldn’t have committed the raider to the attack, but use its assault cannon and melta to harass the vendetta’s. Getting close to him allowed him to use the melta en plasma of his veterans.

 

With all the results in I earned a very respectable 7 place out of the 39 contestants.

 

All in all a very good day for my deathwing, since this was their best tournament performance.

 

One thing I noticed during this tournament was that Belial's lightning claws weren't of much use. Against vehicles he can only glance the back armour. The other advantage of the claws I5 is negated bij the monstrous creature that he tends to attract who all have higher I stats. The reroll can be usefull, but not against vehicles which dominate the current game. Maybe the TH/SS combo will be more usefull. You lose one attack and the reroll, but almost every hit will be a wound due to the S8. You are also capable of destroying vehicles. The SS makes him a little bit more durable and given that 3 out of the 5 missions at the GT will be killpoint missions I think it may be worth it. What do you think?

[Isiah]

No reply yet B) ?

 

Thanks for taking the time to write and put up the batreps aekold.

 

I think a 7th out of 39 is preeety damn respectable given a largely DW-based list so very well done on that. Nice exciting game v the chaos list.

 

Cheers

I

[Thantoes]

Indeed. Despite all the nay-sayers out there I still maintain that a DW list can be competative and hang in there with the best of them.

[aekold]

Deathwing can be very competative in my eyes. It only took me the better part of two years to learn how to use it. In my eyes the key to a succesfull deathwing is to have your units support each other. If a unit wnaders of it is lost.

 

Off course there are matchups that will always be an uphill battle, such as IG plasma spam. But this is true for any list.

[Tanhausen]

Surprised you played for victory points (and not kill points)... that's wierd! And it penalizes expensive squads like ours.. but hey, that how life goes.

 

I think at the moment IG is probably out hardest opponent, specially with plasma templates and vendettas.

 

Congrats on the result though B)

[krewl]

Well I didn't comment 'cause I didn't see it. (Helps that I was there though :D )

Same army that took 6th ath the Dutch GT so Aekold is indeed a very good Deathwing General. (Deathwing and some added offcourse).

Strangly I have yet to play his list with mine in his current form, but after suchs great results I really should make an appointment for a rundown.

Maybe I'll meet up next fallen angels tourney... luck of the draw, who knows.

 

He also dared to say terminators >> bikers, so I am honor bound to take him on with my RW as well. So I need 2 games.. sigh, life's tough.

 

BTW I faced your nr. 2 opponent the turn after that, he had a rhino left ;)