Dark Angels Dutch GT Report

[aekold]

On the 23th and 24th of October the Dutch Grand Tournament was held in Tilburg. Together with some friends I decided to attend. I only had a single goal in mind, finish in the top half of the field. With about 120 contestants it should be possible. Keep in mind this is going to be a long read.

 

I was using my deathwing list I have been using over the past year:

 

belial with thunder hammer and storm shield

 

Deathwing squad:

Storm bolter / power sword

Storm bolter / chain fist/apothecary

Storm bolter / power fist

Assault cannon/power fist

Two lightning claws

 

Deathwing squad:

Storm bolter / power sword

Storm bolter / chain fist

Storm bolter / power fist

Assault cannon / power fist

Two lightning claws

 

Deathwing squad:

Storm bolter / power sword

Storm bolter / chain fist

Storm bolter / power fist/cyclone missile launcher

Storm bolter / power fist

Storm bolter / power fist

 

Deathwing squad:

Two lightning claws

Two lightning claws

Two lightning claws

Thunder hammer / storm shield

Chain fist / heavy flamer

 

Land raider Crusader (holds the last mentioned unit)

 

2 vindicators

 

1 Land speeder with multi melta and heavy flamer

 

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1840/dscn2029l.jpg

My army in all its glory

 

After we got to the hotel on Friday evening we first had a few beers at the bar before I helped my mate to wash his entire Eldar army with leviathan purple. After this we got a call from some friends who were staying at the same hotel. They needed some paints to finish their armies and lured us into their chamber by the promise of some beers. After a very enjoyable evening were 5 of us where having a nice conversation the sixth person was busy finishing his army. I believe that he finished around 2 o’clock that night.

 

The following morning the tournament began. The first mission what be killpoints with pitched battle deployment. I faced off against a space wolves list that consisted of the following (roughly;

 

Logan Grimnar with 7 terminators (including 6 storm shields) in a landraider crusader.

 

2 grey hunter squads of 10 in a rhino. Both with power weapon and 2 melta’s.

 

1 grey hunter squad in a las/plas razorback.

 

2 predators with autocannons and lascannon sponsons.

 

The main thread of his army was logan with his wolfguard in the landraider. That unit had to be stopped.

 

I deployed from left to right:

Vindicator, the 2 assault cannon squads with belial, land raider, vindicator, CML squad. The landspeeder was behind the right most vindicator.

 

He deployed his land raider opposite my vindicator and 2 AC squads, flanked by the predators and razorback. The rhino’s where put opposite the CML squad.

 

I had the first turn and moved everything forward 2 or 3 inch to have everything within range of my vindicators and assault cannons. First I had to eliminate to land raider. The vindicator shell was spot on, but unfortunately I failed to penetrate. Next up was the assault cannon of a terminator squad. I rolled only a single hit, which turned into a rending hit, which in turn became a glancing hit on the land raider. Continuing me rolls I rolled a 6 for the result, which meant that the land raider was immobilized by a single assault cannon shot. In his turn his disembarked and spent the following turns walking into my gun line. His rhino’s moved forward to threaten the vindicator and CML squad. His shooting saw him kill the left vindicator while the apothecary saved a terminator.

 

In my following turns I continued to pour fire into Logan. Only Logan and1 wolf guard made it to my lines only to have belial and 10 terminators jump on them. The ensuing combat saw me kill his last terminator before he got a chance to strike, while Logan killed several terminators before he was cut down by belial and the other power fists. On the right flank the speeder managed to wreck one of his rhino and the passengers in turn blew up the speeder. They were killed by the vindicator and an assault of the CML squad. The other grey hunter squad assaulted the CML squad, but the terminator held their ground. In my following turn the assault terminators charged out of their land raider and routed the grey hunters.

 

When the battle ended he only had 2 predators, an immobilized raider and 6 grey hunters in a razorback. And I had won with 6 to 2 killpoints. This and a difference of more than 450 points that I received 20 battle points, a very nice start.

 

The second battle was versus a tyranid horde, he had:

 

1 tyranid prime with bonesword, scything talons

 

2 x 3 hive guard

 

3 zoantropes

 

3 warriors

 

2 x 20 hormagaunts with poison attacks and furious charge

 

2 x 20 gargoyles

 

18 genestealers with poison attacks and furious charge and a broodlord

 

This battle was a spearhead deployment and annihilation. The battle also meant that every piece of scenery was either smoking (+1 cover) or burning (dangerous terrain). All scenery completely blocked LOS as well. This meant that every one of his units either had cover due to the terrain or screening gargoyles.

 

He won the roll of to start and almost his entire quarter was filled with tyranids. He screened everything with his gargoyles. His centre was held by the warriors, hive guards and zoantrophes. The unit hormagaunts each took a flank behind cover. My deployment was very difficult due to all the LOS blocking terrain, leaving me with very few firelanes. The centre consisted of my land raider with the assault terminators inside and the command squad next to it. To the left were a vindicator and the CML squad. To the right were the assault cannon squad and the other vindicator. Behind them was the land speeder. He infiltrated his genestealers 12” away from me, behind a piece of smoking scenery.

 

In his first turn everything advanced towards me at full speed with exception of the stealers who were waiting for the opportune moment. Shooting saw his hive guard destroy one vindicator, while he stunned the other. This meant that I had to fight without my most important anti-horde weapon. In my turn I returned fire, but due to cover only killed a hive guard, some gargoyles and genestealers. In his second turn his gargoyles moved up further, keeping the rest of his army screened. His zoantrophes took a shot at my raider and despite only glancing it managed to kill it, a major setback. His hiveguard managed to destroy the canon of the other vindicator. His genestealers inched forward toward my terminators. I my turn the speeder flamed several genestealers, but it’s main task was to draw the stealers away from my terminators. The assault squad disembarked and assaulted one gargoyle squad, routing them, while the assault cannon squad routed the other gargoyles. The CML squad killed a single zoantroph.

 

His return assault saw the genestealers tear the speeder from the sky, which refused to explode. His hormagaunts and prime charged the assault cannon terminators and cut them all down in a display off 60 poisoned furious charge attacks. On the left side his hormagaunts charged the assault squad and only managed to kill 2. I managed to win the combat and more gaunts feel due to No retreat! With very little options the CML squad moved to help the assault squad, while the command squad moved to intercept the prime and gaunts. In combat I managed to destroy the left gaunt unit, but lost all but one assault terminator, while the other squad remained intact. The prime and hormagaunts assaulted the command squad, while to zoantrophes blasted 2 terminators of the CML squad into pulp. In the assault phase his prime managed to insta-kill belial with a pair of boneswords (17 on the LD-check). In my turn the 3 remaining members of the CML squad joined the combat between the command squad and the gaunts, while the lone assault terminator assault the zoantrophes. Over the last few turn he managed to whittle down my terminators, until I only had a weaponless vindicator.

 

This meant that he won with 8 kill points to only 3 and he was awarded 20 battle points, while I received 0.

 

The third battle was the homebase objective mission with dawn of war deployment. An additional rule meant that the night fighting lasted through the battle unless you rolled a 6 at the end of a player turn.

 

I faced of against another space wolves list that consisted of:

 

Wolf priest with terminator armour, living lightning and one other power that wasn’t used.

 

2 x 9 grey hunters with wolf banner and plasma gun

 

1 x 10 grey hunters with wolf banner and 2 plasma guns

 

3 wolf guard in terminator armour, thunder hammer and storm shield. One of them was Arjac Rockfist. (one went to each grey hunter squad)

 

2 land raider redeemers with multi melta

 

1 land raider with lascannons.

 

He deployed his objective about 12” to the right of the centre. My objective was in my left corner, close to the table edge.

 

He won the roll-off to go first and decided to deploy nothing, while I deployed belial and the 2 assault cannon squad about 8” of the board. The speeder went into reserves, while the rest would arrive on turn 1.

 

In his first turn his landraiders with a squad in each of them moved on the table. Night fighting meant that only one of his raiders saw my command squad but it was out of range. His lascannon raider wasn’t and killed a single terminator.

 

My turn was very uneventful. The CML moved up to secure my objective, while the centre was held by the raider and a vindicator on each side. All my fire went towards the illuminated raider, but I failed to archive any results. In his turn his raiders moved further forward and continued to put fire into my terminators, but the apothecary prevented any deaths. At the end of his turn the dawn broke and there was no more night fighting. In my turn the speeder arrived and turbo boosted onto the table on my right, towards the lascannon raider. I continued to fire on the raiders but failed miserably. One vindicator scattered 5” (he would continue to do that when I was firing at the raider). The other vindicator failed to penetrate the raider.

 

He moved both of the redeemers forward and disembarked the squad with the rune priest in front of the assault squad, while the squad with Arjac moved in front of belial and the command squad. The raider with lascannon moved back to intercept the speeder. In a stunning display of events he decided not to assault the terminator, but instead decided to rapid fire his bolters and plasma guns. Both the runepriest and Arjac squad managed to kill a single terminator. The lascannon raider failed to kill the speeder due to the fact that it moved flat-out. In my turn the CML squad moved to support the command squad, while the assault squad disembarked and moved to assault the runepriest and his squad. The speeder moved into melta range on the other raider. Both of the vindicator failed again by scattering while the speeder mist with his melta shot. The charge of the command and CML squad saw me kill 7 grey hunters, while Arjac killed belial. He lost the combat and fled. The combat between the other two terminator squads and the runepriest and friends sam me kill everyone except for the priest and a single wolfguard. In turn I lost 3 terminators of the assault cannon squad. I even managed to wound the priest twice with a thunderhammer. He rolled his invulnerable saves, a 5 and a 1. This meant I killed him, but unfortunately he had activated his wolf standard and rerolled the 1 and made the save. How annoying. The priest and last hunter held their ground.

 

The hunters of the lascannon raider disembarked and assaulted the speeder, while the hunters with Arjac continued to flee. He moved a redeemer between me and Arjac so that I couldn’t escort them of the table. The combat between the hunters and speeder saw them wreck the speeder while I finished the priest and last hunter. He did kill the last terminator of the assault cannon squad however. I consolidated towards his home objective with my assault squad. In my turn my vindicator finally achieved a result: A direct hit one the hunters that destroyed the speeder saw seven of them killed, they remaining 3 fled within 3” of the table edge. The remaining turn saw me claim both objectives but in his last turn he managed to tank shock my assault squad of his own objective with the lascannon raider. My death or glory with my chainfist failed and I moved away. I still was within range to contest the objective however. This meant I had one objective to his none. With the battle ending I had gained 14 battle points to his 6.

 

This left me with 34 points after the first day, putting me in 37th place. Not too bad.

 

That night we had a very nice night with a lot of beer and a nice pub quiz. After getting some sleep we were woken up by a phone call from one of our mates. We had overslept. We quickly gathered out belongings, checked out of the hotel and got to our car in 4 minutes. We arrived at the tournament scene in 15 minutes and just in time. I went to my table and first got some thea and cake for breakfast.

 

I found out that I had to battle an ork waaagh. We would deploy using the pitched battle rules and play the seize ground mission. We rolled for 3 objectives and he got to place the first objective. This meant that I couldn’t place the objectives close to each other the way I liked. The first objective he place close to his table edge, behind a wall. I place the second objective opposite the first, behind a huge rock formation. The third objective was placed in the centre of the battle field, next to a rock formation that split the battle field. Not as bad as it could have been.

 

The claiming rules said that you secured an objective if you had a troop choice within 3” of an objective at the end of a turn. The objective remained in your possession until the opponent has a troop choice within 3” and you had no units within 3”. This meant that once a objective was secured you could move your unit away and still be in possession of the objective.

 

I realized that the centre objective would be the most important as we would both secure the objective close to our deployment zone. He Waaagh consisted of:

 

1 big mek with shock attack gun

 

1 big mek with kustom force field and burna

 

20 boyz with nob and power klaw. They rode in a battle wagon

 

2 x 10 boyz with nob and power klaw with truck

 

10 shoota boyz in a truck

 

5 nob bikers with 2 huge choppa’s, 2 klaws and a pain boy. They have cybork bodies.

 

20 gretchin with 2 slavers

 

Battle wagon with a cannon

 

Looted wagon

 

He deployed his shock attack gun and gretchin in a crater on the left. Next to that where the nob bikers. On the other side of the rock formation he put his three buggies with the battle wagons and looted wagon in front. The big mek with force field went in the centre buggy with the shoota boyz, obscuring all vehicles.

 

I deployed from left to right:

Vindicator across the gretchin, land raider, CML squad vindicator, command squad, assault cannon squad.

 

He moved everything forward except for the shock attack gun. The bikers hide behind the central rock formation. The battle wagon with the 20 boys drove towards my assault cannon squad. On truck started to move around the rocks that where covering my right flank. He opened fire on the command squad and managed to wound belial once and kill 2 terminators. In my turn I tried to drive my left vindicator through cover but I immobilized it. The speeder kumped over the rocks to get a melta shot on the battle wagon heading my way. The force field ignored all of my shooting except for two shots. I stunned a truck and I scored a penetrating hit on the battle wagon with the melta. With a +2 bonus on the damage roll (open topped and AP1) I needed a 2 or higher to stop it from hitting my lines in the next turn. Yes, you guessed it, a big fat 1.Maybe in hindsight it was better to have not destroyed the wagon but why this is I will tell you later.

 

His shooting shakes the speeder and he assaults the assault cannon squad and command squadgot charged by the 20 boyz, while the bikers charged my land raider. The rest of his army moved forward and he claimed his two objectives. I won the combat but the power klaw killed 3 terminators. Some more orcs die due to fearless wounds. His bikers fail to damage the raider. In my turn the raider moves backwards and the assault terminators disembark to take on the bikers. The speeder hides behind the rockformation on my right. The CML squad moves to help belial and the other terminators. The vindicator fires a shot at the battle wagon that delivered the boys but failes to penetrate, while the melta of the raider kills a single biker. In the assault phase the assault terminators and bikers inflict 2 wounds on each other, drawing the combat. The mob of 20 orks is wiped out but I lose the entire assault cannon squad. Belial and the command squad consolidate towards the centre while the CML squad moves towards my own objective.

 

One of his trucks mvoes to support the bikers while to other one continues his drive around the right rock formation. He tries to move the truck with big mek and shoota’s through the rock formation but he immobilizes. He disembarks them right next to the truck forming a nice long line. The orks from the truck assault the assault terminators. In the ensuing combat both the bikers and terminators are killed. He consolidates his orks towards the central objective. In my turn the land raider avenges the assault squad by killing all but 3 boys of the squad. The speeder jumps over the rock formation and uses its heavy flamer to fry the hoots orks and the big mek, leaving only the mek and 1 boy. The CML squad moves to guard my home objective against the boys that are moving around the rocks and will assault them next turn. Belial and the command squad move forward in order to claim the central objective. Along the way Belial uses hit thunder hammer to make a battle wagon explode.

 

During his turns he continues to put pressure on me. The last complete mob assault the CML squad while he pours all fire into belial and the command squad. They all survive, except for belial who suffers an ID at the hands of the looted wagon. The three remaining orks move into the rocks at the central objective. In combat I lose 2 terminators but manage to win the combat, he holds. In my turn the three remaining terminators of the command squad manage to kill the three orks on the central objective and secure it. I kill two trucks with the raider and vindicator. In combat he kills the terminators of the CML squad and he secures my home objective, once again he is in the lead with 2-1.

 

He moves the orks that claimed my objective into the rocks to provide them cover, while he pulls the mek and last shoota a bit back. All shooting was directed at the command squad but due to the apothecary none died. The speeder moved into position to flame the boys near my objective and killed all but two who fled away, meaning that all I had to do was walk my command squad back to my home objective, If there would be a turn 6 I could make it. While the command squad where on their way he tried to intercept them with his big mek and send his last shoota boy to claim the central objective. The big mek assault my terminators and killed one but suffered a power fist in the face in return. The consolidation move of 2“ put me into a wreck that was between me and my objective. We rolled to continue and there would be a turn 6, so he moved his last boy further to the central objective but didn’t make it. In my turn I shot down the last boy and moved my terminators towards my objective. I needed to run at least 3” to make it and of course I rolled a 1”. We rolled for another turn and there would be a turn 7. This meant that if he didn’t kill my two terminators no I would win. In a desperate attempt to claim the central objective he started to move his gretchin forward but it was too little too late. In my last turn my terminators secured the home objective, killed the last battle wagon with their assault cannon. The speeder destroyed the looted wagon with a melta blast while the two vindicators and land raider killed over half the gretchin. This final push I had 2 objectives to 1. This was a really grueling match and I just made it through the skin of my teeth.

 

Having however wiped most of his force I received 16 battle points, putting me on a total of 50.

 

The last battle was against a blood angel army and we would play the most straight forward mission. Kill points and pitched battle. His army was made op off:

 

Astorath the grim

 

Librarian in terminators armour with storm shield, unleash rage and blood lance

 

1 sanguinary priest in terminator armour

 

7 terminators, 6 with thunder hammers and storm shields, 1 with lightning claws.

 

2 x 10 men assault squad with power fist and 2 melta guns

 

8 death company with 4 power weapons, 1 power fist, 2 infernus pistols

 

1 storm raven with extra armour, twin linked multi melta and lascannon.

 

It was obvious that he wouldn’t deploy anything so I decided to castle up in a corner. Using hills on both sides I had squad covering each other in case something nasty dropped by.

 

In my first and second turn I moved into slightly better positions and on his second turn his storm raven with deathcompany and one attack squad dhowed up. The Stormraven boosted straight towards me, while the attack squad hid behind a large hill on his half of the table. The stormraven managed to stun a vindicator.

 

In my turn every single gun turned to face the raven. I had at my disposal: 3 assault cannons (1 twin linked), 1 CML, 1 multi melta, and 1 vindicator. That should be enough to blast it out of the sky. And it was. The first shot was with the speeder’s multi melta which caused it to blow up! The explosion put one wound on astorath and killed a death company marine. All the weapons reserved to shooting down the raven where used to shoot the death company. 3 more marines died, leaving only Astorath and 4 death company.

 

On his turn his terminators with priest and librarian show up in the middle of the board and they run towards me in order to spread out. The death company assault the CML squad that was guarding my right flank and kill them all for no loses themselves. I move belial and the assault cannon and command squad to intercept the terminators, while the raider turns to face the death company. The assault terminators disembark en prepare to assault the death company. During the shooting face I kill 2 terminators and 1 death company marine. Belial and the 10 terminators charge his terminators and over the next few turns I wipe out his entire squad, while he kills all but one of the command squad and leaves 2 terminators of the other squad. The same happens with the assault squad and the death company. I manage to kill the entire company and put Astaroth on 1 wound while he kills the entire squad.

 

During his fourth turn his last attack squad arrives and melta a vindicator. I my turn combined efforts of the remaining vindicator and land raider see all but one member of the attack squad that destroyed the vindicator die. Astorath finishes the assault terminators while I finish of his terminators and librarian.

 

During his fifth turn my last 4 terminators are multi assaulted by the attack squad that was hiding behind the mountain and astorath. Belial manages to survive the attacks of astorath due to his storm shield and kills the blood angel in return. I eventually win the combat by 4 and send him packing. I consolidate within 6” to make sure that they keep fleeing. His last attack marines tries to destroy the last vindicator but misses with both his melta and krak grenade. We rolled a dice to see if we would continue but the dice decided enough was enough. He only had a single marines remaining. All the other where dead or fleeing.

 

After calculating victory points I scored a massacre and received 20 battle points, giving me a grand total of 70 battle points.

 

Together with the points I scored with my painting, army roster and the quiz I had a grand total of 130 points. This put me in 6th overall place out of 120 people. Not too bad for a dark angel list.

 

So all in all I was really really pleased how my list performec. And while I sometimes wish I had access to the new toys I still and really pleased with our old unpowered codex :P.

[Tanhausen]

6th/120 is a GREAT result! Congratulations!

 

To be honest, I tried to "see" the batreps... but its hard without pics! At least 1 of the deployment would have been handy. But I read through all of it :P

 

It shows a "normal" sample of metagame in Spain... 2 wolves, 1 Nid, 1 Blood Angel and 1 ork... where there many daemons or lash chaos?

 

Also, its wierd that you don't load Belial (TH/SS? why?) with the assault terminators in LRC... I guess you've developed your style with that and it works nicely

 

70 points for the games and 60 for painting, roster and quiz? Sounds a bit unbalanced to me... unless you got REALLY high scores... what was the max you could get? 60/60? Normally here a 3 game tourney you get around max 100 for games and 20 or so for painting/conversion.

 

Again, congrats on the result!

[krewl]

I was with Aekold that tourney (Failed spectacularly on my "Brilliant" biker list of doom ;), because I was the guy still painting to get stuff done untill 2 o clock. So I did not practice with the list, but 5 games showed the folly of my ways... ).

 

The sunday he was still asleep when we left the hotel so we woke them up, that was kinda funny. ;)

 

Aekold, your second opponent sounds like Koen is that correct? On of the other guys in the hotel?

 

We could get:

100 pattle points 20 points in 5 games.

20 points for the quiz. (One point per question, like who where the first legion founded (easy ;) ) and what mark battle suit does oshovansomething wear.. not so easy...)

20 points army presentation. List, points costs, information on the army list, and extra wow effort and WYSIWYG.

and I think 30 points on painting, basing, army coherency and conversions.

 

Congratulations (Again :) ) on a great performance. We should do a game again sometime, perhaps we'll meet the next one in Amersfoort.

Final game on table 1 ok (Or at least I hope so ;) )

 

BTW this was not in spain, but in The Netherlands.

My own opponents where:

Salamander Space Marines

Tyranids

Deamons

Space Marines

Orks.

 

Not a lot of chaos as far as I could see. Deamons won the 1st place (Nico or as he's better know Abaddon) who has won it before, and is always one of the contenders for 1st.

[Gillyfish]

That's a very impressive performance aekold, especially given the fact that our Codex isn't able to use the storm shield spam tactic that works so well for other chapters (perhaps just as well!).

 

It sounds like the defeat you had could well be blamed on the set-up and opponent (it would probably have been very different against Tau for example). Is that one you think that you could have won at all if you had done things differently?

[krewl]

In his defence I know the opponent, and he's a good player aswell (The nid guy I mean).

 

And only storm shields in the SM codex are very good, Blood angels are just as fine, but not as populair because of other options the lists give, and SW shields are very expensive. (SW termies work best when most are just powerweapons.)

Upgrading gives you a bunch of 60+ points guys who are just outnumbered all the time.

[Isiah]

Excellent result aekold with an interesting army list. You'll be added to the ++Hallowed Halls of Honour++ topic as an example of your success and as inspiration for others.

 

And better luck next time for you krewl :tu:.

 

[hmmm... Jan 5th 2010 was the last time that topic was updated – anyone had good tourney performances that can be added?]

 

Cheers

I

[aekold]

Thanks all for the compliments. Now to answer some of your questions.

 

Also, its wierd that you don't load Belial (TH/SS? why?) with the assault terminators in LRC...

I choose the TH/SS because of 2 reasons:

1. 3 out of 5 missions of the tournament were killpoint missions. Belial being allergic to powerfists and the like needed to increase his inv save.

2. Most of the things I seem to end up in combat with are either vehicles or monstrous creatures who have higher I. I may loose 1A with the hammer but due to the S8 I never felt the loss of the reroll to wound.

I didn't put Belial in the raider because the squad in the raider is all ready well protected. By putting him in one of the other squads (usually the command squad) I can soak up 2 wounds (usually plasma) with losing a terminator, keeping my squad effective for a longer period of time.

 

It sounds like the defeat you had could well be blamed on the set-up and opponent (it would probably have been very different against Tau for example). Is that one you think that you could have won at all if you had done things differently?

The mission was extremely in his advantage, with all the scenery blocking line of sight. I felt that the turning point was when he glanced my raider to death. I was planning to use it to block//annnihilate one unit of uber gaunts, whiel the terminators inside it slaughtered the gargoyles. Except for the zoantrophes he had nothing that could touch the raider, so I was really unlucky in that part. If he hadn't killed my raider I could have really made live difficult for him. He is however as krewl mentioned a very decent player (@Krewl, it was Koen indeed. Thanks for the wake-up call by the way:)).

 

@Isiah: I believe that Krewl has had some succes with a deathraven list. I know it is some time ago, but maybe he is willing to share his succes.

 

I hope that this inspires Dark Angel players to keep the faith in our codex.

[Tanhausen]

Makes sense that if you confront MC and Vehicles you take TH/SS. Since I usually take Belial in a LRC and use him in assault vs infantry... I prefer claws.

 

It also makes sense the plasma reasoning... but to be honest, there is very little plasma in my area: how many meltas and missiles do you want? ;)

[aekold]

If the unit belial in is suffers multiple bolter wounds I usually take one on belial. If I fail two saves, one on belial, one on another terminator I use the apothecary to ingnore to wound on the terminator while belial takes the wound. once again this keeps my squad at optimal performance.

[krewl]

My DeathRaven list win at the angels (3rd place that is, which would have been 2nd had I not charged in in the first game cause that's what marines do :pirate: ) is already up there.

 

My Deathraven outing to the GT was a disaster as well last year. no range over 24" and no marines to play against.

Necrons in the first game, built on WBB. All units teleporting out of CC, and so it was very hard to even get a draw as I could never stay in CC, but always get locked in, teleport out, then rapid fire to death..

Eldar mechanised on a no LOS blocking table

Deamons where ok and doable after that, then eldar Seer council with eldrad where fortune kept annoying me.

 

So I do fine against marines, but then I met no marines....

The tournament after that was the one that's in the hall. that was against CSM, Guard and CSM. Where I did fine.

 

I started looking into another list after that as I dislike it when lists have entire races that you do not want to draw.

[RayJ]

aekold hits on something many people overlook when using Belial. Most people are worried about making him the most points effecient support unit they can, which is where the lightning claws currently excel. Against many modern armies though, survival is much more important, and that 4++ save in close combat lets him keep ticking just a little bit longer.

 

It's great to see this success with DA. Congratulations!

 

P.S. Your army really stands out across the table with the extreme edge highlighting. I really like the effect even if the colors don't suit me.