Batreps from a tourney this past weekend

[maturin]

Here's a brief series of batreps from my games at a tourney this past weekend. I'm working off the armylists my opponents provided, and my very fuzzy memory here so please forgive any mistakes. This is also a repost of something from another local board, so apologies for potential grammatical silliness. The tournament was 3 rounds, with each player having a secret primary objective drawn from a list of 8 potential ones. Secondary victory was always determined by possession of 4 objectives, one in each quadrant.

 

I was playing my Salamanders scout-y force for the first time in a tourney, and I was excited to see how they would fare. 1700 points is the biggest army I've fielded in a tourney (I usually play 1500) so this was new to me as well.

 

My list:

Librarian with Gate of Infinity and Might of Ancients

Chaplain Cassius

Full Tac Squad: LC, flamer, and Rhino

Sniper Scouts x5: ML and Sgt. Telion (on loan from the Ultramarines, of course!)

CC Scouts x5: combi-melta and PF (to ride in Land Speeder Storm)

Land Speeder Storm: MM

Scout Bikes x5: 2x GL, PF, and locator beacon

Vanguard x6: RB/SS sarge, 1x SS, 1x PW, and Rhino

Sternguard x8: 2 combi-plasma, 2 combi-melta, HF, and PF

Dreadnought: MM, EA, and a drop pod with locator beacon

Predator (AC only)

 

My hope was to use the LSS and scout bike scout moves to get some first-turn charges in, and use the droppod dread to further upset my opponent's plan. The librarian would join the Sternguard and Gate them around the battlefield, using the locator beacons to avoid scatter. The Vanguard and Cassius would babysit the sternguard where possible.

 

Game 1: Against a Grey Knights army, new codex! I was a bit concerned when I saw he outnumbered me (!)

Grand Master

10x Terminators with 2 incinerators, 5 halberds, 3 hammers, and psybolt ammo

10x Strike Squad with 2 psycannons and psybolt ammo

10x Strike Squad with 2 psycannons and psybolt ammo

10x Purifiers with 4 psycannons, 2 hammers, 4 halberds, and psybolt ammo

10x Purifiers with 4 incinerators, 2 hammers, 4 halberds, and psybolt ammo

 

Deployment was Dawn of War, and my opponent won the roll off and went first. He set up his 2 strike squads in ruins, one in each of his quadrants. I countered by deploying only the sniper scouts in the far right corner, with the scout bikes infiltrating on the board for a first turn charge. He kept the termies and GM in reserve to deep strike, and the purifiers walked on in between the two strike squads, in combat squads. He wiped the scout bikes off the table with psycannon shooting on the first turn. B) With his army strung out along the table, I elected to refuse my left flank, and dropped my dread in by the right hand strike squad. Not wanting to have his Strike squad tied up in CC by a dread, he charged it with a purifier demisquad and the ensuing tarpit lasted for a few turns. This was enough time for me to shoot/assault his right strike squad off the objective, using the outflanking LSS scouts, Sternguard, tac squad, and Vanguard vets. His termies and GM came in time to see the last GK from that squad run off the board, landing right in the middle of my men, and promptly failed about five 2+ armor saves (caused by bolt pistols!). After shooting only the GM was left, and he was dragged under a tide of green armor. I managed to kill his 2 most expensive troops choices (my primary), and held 2 objectives to his 1. Win #1 - hooray!

 

Game 2: Blood Angels - another army I've never faced before!

 

Asteroth the Grim

Tac Squad x2 with 3 flamers, PC, MM, and rhinos x2

Death Company

Death Company Dreadnought with magna grappler

Vanguard Vets with Jump Packs and MB's

Baal Predator with Flamestorm and 2x HF

Vindicator, SS and EA

 

I was very excited as I won the roll off and elected to go first. Deployment was a very neat skewed line across the table, with the 2 sides 18" apart, almost like Apocalypse. I deployed my forces center left, with the Sternguard in a crater in the center-back of my side, and a tank wall shielding their front. I plopped the LSS front and center, as close to the middle of the table as I could get. After my opponent lined up his forces on the center and right side of the table, I infiltrated the sniper scouts into his far corner (for shots at rear armor) and the scout bikes on the left, ready for some alpha-striking, auto-hitting action.

 

Of course, he stole the initiative. 4 dead scout bikes and a LSS later, I had pretty much his entire army within 12" of my poor clustered-up force. Things were not looking good, until my dread dropped in and melta'd the Death Company dread in the back. Kablooey! Next turn it tarpitted a tac squad for the rest of the game. Telion's granting his BS 6 to the missile launcher pretty much meant a damaged or killed BA vehicle each turn, and my vanguard vets threw caution to the wind, and charged the Death Company. They killed each other, leaving Asteroth and 1 DC hanging out alone in the middle of the table, chasing after a wayward rhino for the rest of the game. My Sternguard gated around, taking a lot of fire while dishing it out as well, until BA Vanguard Vets heroically intervened and cut them down. They were felled in turn by the librarian, who was quite pumped up on Might of Ancients. The rest of the battle is a little fuzzy in my memory, but the end result was that I held 2 objectives to his 1, losing the libby in a last-minute Gate mishap while trying to contest Jordan's last objective. Nevertheless, by holding him to one objective I achieved my primary and secondary goals.

Game 3: Nurgle Marines served up, with a side of autocannon flavored spam! A very, very fluffy army (something about Nurgle's number) and beautifully painted.

Slaneeshi Sorceror with Doombolt

10 Nurgle Termies with 2 reaper AC's and stuff

Dreadnought with TLAC & HF

10 CSM with Icon of Nurgle, PG, AC

10 CSM with Icon of Nurgle, PG, AC

6 Noisemarines, Blastmaster

8 Havocs with 4 AC

Land Raider (empty)

 

Spearhead deployment. My opponent won the roll off and elected to go first. He put his Havocs in his back corner, with the CSM's on his right and left, Termies and LR in the center, and Noisemarines on my far right. I decided to try and get the noisemarines into CC with the scout bikes and LSS, relying on scout-move turbo boosting to keep everyone alive - which it did for the most part. Unfortunately my drop pod dread suffered a deep strike mishap by scattering off the table (!). But the scouts and bikes were enough to kill the Noisemarines. They then took on a CSM squad, but due to powerfists whiffing and failed scout armor saves, the scouts and bikes were soon routed, running away to either die or take no further part in the battle (aside from entertainment value as targets). In the center the termies and Land Raider advanced menacingly. I ignored the LR, as I didn't put too much stock in my ability to blow it up. Instead I focused on the termies, whittling them down to half strength before the vanguard & Cassius charged in and killed them all. The Librarian pumped himself up on Might of Ancients, and managed to kill the dread while simultaneously receiving a DCCW through his own torso. In the end, we tied on our primary missions but I held 2 objectives to his 1, netting me the secondary victory.

 

I placed third (in battle points, anyways) out of ~30 in the tourney, a much better showing than I had any right to expect, I think. The unsung hero of my day was the lone tac squad in my list. They didn't kill much, they ran away and huddled in their rhino a lot, but at the end of each game they found themselves sitting on an objective or two, gaining me the secondary victories.

 

Thanks for reading, and comments are welcome!

[Tanhausen]

Congrats on the result... and on beating the GK, they seem quite tough and are the new shiny toy (pun intended :cuss ).