Tournament BatRep

[Taz]

Last sunday Fellow B&C poster megamarines and I entered a doubles tournament at the local GW. A round robin-style with 1250 points apiece for 2500 points per team. My Blood Angels teamed with his Lamenters for a double-dose of BA glory. Our lists were as follows.

 

Me:

 

HQ

-Dante+Honor Guard with four meltaguns

-Epistolary Librarian with Jump Pack using Shield and UR with a storm bolter

 

Elites

-Chaplain with Jump Pack

 

Troops

 

-Assault Squad of 10 with PF, Plasma Pistol and flamer

-Assault Squad of 10 with TH and PP

 

Fast Attack

 

-Baal Predator with TLAC and HB sponsons

 

A rather simplistic list. The initial plan was to have a closely concentrated assault force around Dante and his Novitiate while he and his honor guard knocked out armor. The pred was there by request of megamarines for extra fire support.

 

megamarines:

 

HQ

 

-Chapter Master Malakim Phoros (Sane Tycho count-as)+HG with 4 power weapons

 

Troops

 

-Tac Squad of 10 with Power Weapon, Combi-Melta, Melta Bombs, Plasma Cannon and Plasma Gun

-Tac Squad of 10 with PW, MB, Heavy Bolter and Melta gun in Razorback with TLAC and Extra Armor

-Tac Squad of 10 with PF, ML and PG in a Rhino with EA

 

Heavy Support

 

-Storm Raven with TLMM, Hurricane Bolters and EA

 

A list keyed for taking and holding objectives with the SR as a fast delivery system for Phoros and friends.

 

 

ROUND 1

 

Not the best way to start a tournament off. Objectives with table quarter deployment. Our opponents were a pair of power gamers, one running Imperial Fists and the other Crimson Fists, with Lysander and TDA libby on the former and Pedro Kantor on the ladder. In any case, they both brought two full squads of them. The IF's bringing nothing but TH/SS termies to the table, while the CF's used standard termies with some assault cannons and missile launchers. In the back line were five x5 teams of scouts. Two squads of IF scouts with sniper rifles and three squads of CF scouts, from what I can remember.

 

Turn one saw the IF libby use Gate of Infinity to put the squad of assault termies without Lysander right in our faces. Other than some desultory fire from the snipers and tac termies, not much else. Not having much of an alternate choice we focused our efforts on the immediate threat. The Lamenters poured as much fire as they could into the squad without much effect, although the SR claimed a few kills before I sent my libby's assault squad into CC to keep them away from the tacticals. Unfortunately the Fist libby 'hooded my UR but other than that my librarian performed incredibly admirably, considering the circumstances, managing to survive three rounds of combat without an invuln against the multitude of TH attacks ranged against him. His squad held out as much as they could but by the bottom of turn three the squad and libby had fallen. By then however the Raven had disgorged Phoros/Tycho and his honorguard while Lysander finally plodded his way over and the entire left side of the board became a combat mill for yellow-on-yellow crime.

 

My Predator had yet to outflank in from reserves, and hoping to hit the squishy scouts in the back row I deployed my Chaplain's squad and Dante in their table quarter. Unfortunately that turn was when Kantor decided to use his orbital strike, which successfully killed every member of the assault squad save the Chaplain(In retrospect I should have gone to ground), and Dante and his HG was quickly overcome by CF terminators sitting back to screen the scouts, but not before losing a few to concentrated melta fire. Dante was sent retreating but couldn't seem to get the distance from the terminators to successfully regroup and was hounded off the board. Meanwhile the slow tide of IF terminators were brawling their way through the remainder of the Lamenters, the Raven had been immobilized or at least stunlocked by missile fire. By the time my predator entered the fray it was too late to make a difference, and we were handily defeated.

 

ROUND 2

 

Determined no to let that loss set our pace for the rest of the tournament, we licked our wounds and came back with a vengeance for round two. That game saw us face off an inquisitorial force with three rhinos full of storm troopers, an Inquisitor with a pair of mystics, Vindicare assassin a GK Grandmaster with psycannon and a squad of GK termies and two dreadnaughts with TLLC and DCCWs paired with a Tyranid player using the Parasite or Mortrex with accompanying gargoyles, three units of Termagants (At least I think they were. I can never remember which gaunt is which. The shooty ones.) with two in mycetic spores, a carnifex in a third spore and both a Mawloc and a Trygon. Table edge deployment with modified sieze ground with 4th ed-style killpoints.

 

The Inquisitor was deployed behind the building the Vindicare sat on top of, with the GKs in the center of the line with the dreadnaughts both in cover and the Parasite and Gargoyles in the back. Lamenters deployed in and around cover and I, not wanting to see my predator in reserve again all game, deployed it on the far left to shore up the flank and harry any infantry unit that tried to cross the table on foot and left everything else in reserve along with the SR and Phoros/Tycho. Turn one was uneventful, with a few potshots taken but for the most part everyone was either out of LOS or in reserve.

 

Turn two saw all of our side's reserves deployed, the librarian (Who's squad had Red Thirsted) I DS'ed alongside the building the Inquisitor hid behind and scattered back a few inches. In turn the GK player(who was still using the old Daemonhunters codex) used his inquisitor's mystics to allow the Vindicare to kill off the libby with a potshotted Double-Penetrator as soon as he hit the field. Meanwhile the remainder of my units I deployed to the far right of the board in support of the Lamenters sitting in cover, with Dante toward mid-table, using his Precision Strike special rule to get right behind cover without scattering, and the SR came in from the table edge and sat behind the building, both of us anticipating a nid rush when our opponents got their turn two. Sure enough their turn rolls around and the Mawloc arrives right beneath megamarines' rhino and RB, I believe shaking the former and immobilizing the ladder. The Mycetic spore with the Carnifex landed, somehow scattering and ending up on the roof of a building, and a single Storm Trooper squad in a rhino came in from table edge near the inquisitor and my assault squad. Because of it's location, the fex couldn't do much more than glare angrily at us for a turn as the Mawloc did it's Mawloc thing, which turned out to be thrash around like a crack-addled monkey without really causing further significant casualties. The Inquisitor continued to cower behind the building from my assault squad while the GK's decided to chase it. The Grandmaster scored a solid kill with the Psycannon but not much else and the Parasite stayed back as well.

 

Turn three was where the battle began to really swing in our favor. My first assault squad, already Red Thirsting and none too happy about the loss of the librarian, rushed forward with the flamer at the fore and burned both of his mystics to cinders. The SR and Baal Predator unleashed their own displeasure into he Carnifex, reducing it to bloody chunks before it could get off the building. The two tacticals in the vehicles stricken by the Mawloc piled out and rushed it, with massed fire from both of them, my second assault squad and Dante's melta-heavy honor guard putting paid to the beast and sending it back down it's hole a bloody ruin. In the assault phase my first assault squad finally got to grips with the inquisitor and the remains of his retinue, using their Furious Charge and finally breaking the cowardly radical bastard in half and consolidating into the cover of the building he had been hiding behind. As our opponents got their turn the gaunts arrived, two more mycetic spores dropping amongst our clustered forces on the right side of the table. The beasts tried to cut into my assault squad with massed fire and some weapon upgrade that gave them a flame template of their own as well as the flailing tentacles of the spores, but the novitiate's FNP saved them from the worst of the damage, save for an unlucky few models including one of Dante's HG. One of the Dreadnaughts scores a lucky LC shot and downs the SR, forcing Phoros/Tycho and the HG to pile out. Lacking the Mawloc's emergence hole to deploy from, the gaunts that didn't have a spore were forced to come in via the table edge alongside the last two storm trooper squads in rhinoes. Finally, the third storm trooper unit pushed forward, killing my predator by shooting melta through the fire slots. The loss of the Inquisitor nearby galvanized the Parasite of Mortrex into action, turning to attack the assault squad shletering in the building, affording me the advantage of initiative, striking down three of them while the Sargeant crushed the xenos leader into pulp with his powerfist, in return one model was lost to the Parasites final spiteful special rule, three or four ripper bases exploding from his chest. Losing combat, and without the benefit of their hideous pack leader bolstering their courage, the vile beasts tried to flee, but were caught and massacred by my noble squad, who again returned to cover, their sights now set on the cowardly assassin who had taken the librarian from them that even now sat on the roof of the very building they were in.

 

As we entered Turn four our forces on the right side spread out again to address the gaunts that had fallen into our midst. The assault squad in the enemy's building jumped up a level to get to grips with the assassin, and making all their dangerous terrain tests. Dante swung around behind one of the spores and he and his squad burned the xenos abomination from the planet with focussed melta fire while the chaplain and his own squad began to unleash their disdain for the pack of creatures the thing had disgorged in the form of pistol fire before rushing forward, between the Novitiate's Furious Charge and the rerolls from the Chaplain's Liturgies of Blood, not a single creature survived as the Lamenters brought down the pack's counterpart with massed fire. One of the other tactical squads' heavy weapons blew the lascannon off of one of the dreadnaughts that had been creeping closer in hopes of a clean shot at one of the vehicles. My first assault squad tried to shoot the assassin out of his foxhole, but neither bolt, plasma or flamer managed to harm him, and so the squad was forced to go up and end him face to face where his rifle could not save him. As the other team got their turn to reply the Trygon finally entered the fray, but because of the fact that I had just crushed their abominable beast leader it was reduced to roll for it's instincts, which actually kept it from assaulting a nearby tactical squad that turn, which allowed it to damage the beast with bolt and plasma when we got our turn five. The two storm trooper squads that had remained in the back piled out of their rhinos and they along with the last squad of gaunts finally brought my assault squad's rampage to an end with massed fire. The Grey Knight terminators had been slowly slogging their way to attack the squad the Trygon was threatening but thus far hadn't gotten close enough to do much more than fire the psycannon a few more times to little effect as his squad was being whittled down with heavy weapons and plasma fire.

 

In Turn 5 the last of the Grandmaster's squad was killed, leaving him alone and with one wound left, thanks to Dante's death mask at the beginning of the game, effectively neutering his effectiveness were he to get stuck in with the Lamenter squad he had been eyeing, which allowed them to take their toll on the Trygon rushing them from the left. The rest of my army moved up, eager to get to grips with the next target, which at the time was the pair of dreadnaughts coming forward to meet them. As heavy weapon fire took the DCCW from the already gunless frontmost dreadnaught and stunned it, Dante blitzed forward to melta it's backup, stunning it as well and immobilizing it to boot. Not having much else to do we ended our turn. In response our opponents did their level best to consolidate their forces. The squad of gaunts ran forward, the two stormtrooper squads that had been with them returned to their rhinos and gunned forward as well in support of the dreadnaughts and the remaining one pulled their vehicle around to block the Grandmaster from LOS as the Trygon finally entered combat. We rolled off and entered Turn 6, which saw the Lamenters overcome the Trygon in a feat that will go down in their chapter's annals while Dante cracked open one of the inquisitorial rhinos, allowing the Chaplain to get at the squishy delicious storm troopers hiding within but other than that not much else happened and we didn't bother rolling for turn 7 as time had run out for the round. A victory worthy of redeeming out previous defeat but the true glory was yet to come.

 

"And thus were the workings of the iniquitous and the xenos rendered unto dust and ash."-Chaplain Elysius of the Salamanders Chapter

 

ROUND 3

 

This was the crucial match that would determine whether or not we would even place in the top teams of the tourney. Annihilation, Dawn of War deployment. Our opponents were playing a double Chaos Space Marine list. A strange pair of lists, too. With Typhus leading two squads of Khorne Berzerkers while the pair of Plague Marine squads were led into battle by Abbadon the Despoiler. They deployed their entire lists out on the field, the 'zerkers and Plague Marines in rhinos while Abbadon, Typhus and Typhus's pair of plague terminator bodyguards ran in daemon-possessed Land Raiders. I reserved my entire army, including the Predator, Lamenters deploy mostly in cover with the SR in reserve. Turn one passes uneventfully, with the exception of a failed terrain test on the part of one of the Berzerkers' rhinos, leading to it getting immobilized and a few jokes concerning the driving skills of Angron's spastic brood. Lamenter's heavy weapons also immobilize one of the plague rhinos.

 

Turn two I manage to deploy all my forces save the Baal Predator. The Storm Raven comes in as well. I deep strike everything into the back corner on the board in the middle of the plague marines deployment with my Chaplain's squad with TH near the immobilized plague rhino further toward the center of the board and my Librarian's squad closer to Abbadon's LR with Dante using Precision Strike to land directly behind it, pumping 5 melta shots into the rear armor but only managing to immobilize it. The storm Raven traded fire with the other land raider to little effect. The Plague marines piled out to shoot some meltaguns of their own at the Chaplains squad and assaulting them, the massed attacks and PF/Crozius attacks causing damage while missing with their own PF. Meanwhile Abbadon, displeased that I had muffed up the paint on his ride, disembarked to show me exactly where I could put my my force staff and decided to turn his fury on the Libby's assault squad, the bolt shells from his gauntlet failing to penetrate my armor and entered assault with me here as well. In a show of bravery and martial prowess that should be recorded in the roll of honor of the Blood Angels the Librarian cast UR and wounded Abbadon, not bothering to FW him because of his Eternal Warrior rule, and avoiding the Despoiler's reply attacks because he failed his Daemon Weapon roll, allowing the rest of the squad to bring down the Warmaster with sheer number of attacks without casualties.

 

Next turn the immobilized Khornate rhino fixes itself and begins to move, as well as Typhus' own Land Raider,moving up to address the issue my assault squads were causing. Meanwhile, Dante and my Libby, not content to sit upon their laurels, came to face the second Plague Marine squad that had driven up in their rhino. Phoros/Tycho landed and charged into the combat between my chaplain and the Plague Marines, ending the combat cleanly with a Furious Charge. As the Storm Raven finished off Abbadon's wounded Land Raider, Dante wrecked the corrupted rhino, the resulting explosion immolating two Plague Marines, allowing the Librarian to rush forward, with both Furious Charge and Unleash Rage active, and decimated the remaining squad with force staff and chainsword. As our opponents took their next turn Typhus' LR, firing ineffectually at the Storm Raven, moved up and disgorged Typhus and his brethren within assault range of the Librarian, rushing forward to cut them down with their Manreapers, but my Librarian, not willing to meet that fate, went toe-to-toe with with the plague lord and struck him down with a single blow from his force weapon, the psychic charge ending the contest before Typhus could strike back, and going on to avoid every single attack by his own honor guard, enraged by the ignonimous end of their master. As the rest of the Librarian's squad cut down the traitor scum at the end of turn 4, our opponents decided they had had enough and forfeited the game to us with full honors. And thus was the blight of Chaos beaten into submission and ran fleeing back into the Eye from whence they emerged! Bravado aside I don't think we can take full credit that our opponents quit, they had a really bad game against the least popular, most obnoxious player in the store who ran a nob cybork speed freek list and they had gotten into an argument with them that had almost ended in a physical confrontation. Suffice to say it had kind of thrown their game for the rest of the day. I've played that player in past tournaments and don't really fault them for it.

 

At the end of the day, megamarines and I had tied for second place, only two points short of first place. Later on I was told by the store manager that we would have earned another five points had my army been completely painted(I was using the Space Hulk Masterclass to paint the red, and I had to do it on the entire force. Suffice to say it was a lot of slow, meticulous work), so I like to count this as a great, glorious moral victory for both the Blood Angels and Lamenters, which brought much honor to both our chapters and Sanguinius. I'm especially proud of how my Librarian, Epistolary Arterion performed. Lasting three rounds of combat against nothing but TH/SS terminators, and then going on to bring down not only Abbadon, but Typhus as well? I need to think of some sort of honor badge to give him, I think. Maybe a special, gold purity seal. :lol:

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Sounds like an awesome time... congrats brother!! :D ...did you get any pictures?

[Taz]

Unfrotunately no. I was more focussed on the game. I should also mention that in the last game with chaos players, in typical Blood Angel fashion, I was so excited about the close combat that I forgot to roll my tank in from reserves. XD

[mega_marines]

I read this and hear BLOODANGELSBLOODANGELS and...Lamenters...

 

Haha.

 

Anyways, first game was just bizarre. No thanks to good ole Lamenters bad-luck, 35 combined Bolter and Assault Cannon shots failed to drop a single Terminator, let alone wound more than half a dozen times. By the end of that game when I knew we were just gonna eat it, I made it my goal to wipe out the entire Imperial Fist contingent on the table before I went down. If I couldn't have yellow, then nobody could. By the end of the game, I succeeded in wiping them out, and holding two of the five objectives. Still, not enough for a win or even a draw, but it felt nice to be the last yellow standing.

 

Second game was just "What?..." for me. It essentially saw the big bugs of the Nids coming at me from the sky and underground, and I promptly sent them back from whence they came. That damned Mawloc popped out and shocked the Bejesus out of my tanks, didn't hurt the Raven(which ended up getting knocked out of the sky by the luckiest Lascannon shot I've ever seen), and proceeded to stare angrily at me for a turn before everyone shot it to pieces. Earlier in the game, I started whittling down the Gargoyles and Parasite with Heavy Bolter shots, and hit the ever approaching Dreadnoughts with plenty of shots. Stunned and blew weapons off turn after turn, but not scoring kills until the last turns when Phoros and friends started running around, eating Spore Pods, taking wounds off the Carnifex(Which my Tacticals dropped), and ripping apart Gaunts. At the end of the game, they managed a total of 4 vehicle kills, and enough weapon destroyed results to choke a horse. The Tacticals playing bait o nthe other sidde of the table managed to do extremely well for their role too. Ripped apart the entire Grey Knight Grandmasters retinue of 5 in a few turns, and then caused 5 wounds on the Trygon before it assaulted them in cover(most of the wounds were from Bolter shots). Funnily enough, since they were in cover, they killed it before it could strike, and in total, proved to be the MVP's, killing over 3 times their value in the end.

 

Last game saw me playing Tank Hunter; and oh boy did I do it well. Every turn oh so saw me ripping weapons off tanks, or immobilizing them. By the time the Blood Angels reached combat and held themselves up on the right flank, did I choose to send Phoros and his Honor Guard in style. Slamming down the Storm Ravens Assault Ramp, they hopped out and wiped out 12 Plague Marines before they could even strike back thanks to Furious Charge and a boatload of Power Weapons. The Storm Raven itself grew sick of the approaching Rhinos too and popped one because it dared fire a Combi-Bolter at my Tactical squad holed up in the center ruin. A little later on, after pretty much keeping the other entire army delayed or wounded, did my Tactical Squad with a Plasma Cannon unload with a perfect shot, killing 8 Plague Marines in a single blast; paving the way for Taz's Arterion to have epic showdowns with the big bosses of Chaos. Thanks to poor rolling on the Chaos side, and excellent rolling from Taz, he managed to drop both of the big terrors in a single combat phase each. I don't think anyone saw Abaddon rolling his Demon Weapon badly, coming. Nor the fact he failed 3 armor saves in a row. But hey, he wasn't the real Abaddon, just some proxy of his. :(

 

All in all, a good tournament. Thankfully we didn't have to play the huge jerk of an Ork player I played once before. Dude gave me a migraine in our first game, and almost made me punch him square in the jaw. Our last opponent with Abaddon almost punched him earlier too. Guess some people never change. :D

[Taz]

Nope. That's why our store manager isn't telling him about any more tournaments. XD

[Tabgoi]

Great bat rep. It sounds like you guys had a good time despite a bit of cheese at the begining.

[mega_marines]

Great bat rep. It sounds like you guys had a good time despite a bit of cheese at the begining.

 

Hah, yeah. At least they were nice players. Though, it feels like they use being overtly friendly as a cover for their power-game.

[The Yncarne]

Good post and great read. The last game's description was quite entertaining.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[Taz]

Great bat rep. It sounds like you guys had a good time despite a bit of cheese at the begining.

 

Hah, yeah. At least they were nice players. Though, it feels like they use being overtly friendly as a cover for their power-game.

Agreed, and despite all that I think our sportsmanship on the matter was excellent. So yeah, we both had a good time. It's been too long since I've stretched my wings and played a good game, let alone a tournament. So to have my first tourney in who knows how long turn out like that is really encouraging. And I gotta hand it to megamarine's Lamenters for showing that fluffy lists can be competitive too.

[mega_marines]

It's been too long since I've stretched my wings and played a good game, let alone a tournament.

 

And I gotta hand it to megamarine's Lamenters for showing that fluffy lists can be competitive too.

 

I see what you did there..... :P

 

And...duh. :lol:

[Tabgoi]

You are just going to have to get into another good scrap then and let us know how it goes. Heck, I am still working on stripping the last of my force for repainting, though I am taking a break to repaint 6 of my DC. I still need to get a list I like done, I cannot chose between storm ravens and land raiders. Either way it will likely be a lot like my third edition list and be based on tac squads with a floating assault squad.

[tednificent]

Glad you guys had a good time and did well

 

Correct me if I'm wrong because I might be. I thought when taking shield and another psychic power that we use in our turn like rage, that we did not need to upgrade to epistolary to use both. This is possible because it is per player turn. So shield in their turn, rage in ours - does this make sense? Or am I off topic?