Mega 'Ard Boyz Semi-Finals Battle Report!

[Muctar]

You can also see the article in my blog.

 

Well it’s been quite a while, but since I’ve finally got a little time away from work, and I’ve had a few requests to write up some battle reports from ‘Ard Boyz semi-finals, I figured I’d get them written and posted.

 

I attended Crossroads Gaming’s hosting of the ‘Ard Boyz semi-finals in Standish, ME. Took me roughly 10 hours of driving on Friday from my town in New-Brunswick to get to Portland, spent the night there, played on the Saturday, slept, and then booked it back home over the border on Sunday so I’d be back for work that Monday. It was a whirlwind trip and I had a blast. I really want to say thanks to Brenden and everyone at Crossroads for putting on a great event, as well as my fellow competitors at the event. Lots of great people were in attendance that day, and many great players.

 

Now, onto the battle reports for my three matches. Grey Knights are the flavor of the month, so of course there were many armies there, which had me worried for my Salamanders while I was looking around the tables. You can check out my list here (look down at the second revised version).

 

Round 1 vs. Grey Knights

 

Setup –The board had a pond on my right, a river running diagonally through table with a bridge in middle. There were broken castle corners on each side of the bridge, a few hills which we agreed were impassable to vehicles, and a couple of forests. In my deployment zone I had a cliff with a waterfall feeding the pond which I could perch some models on, slowing any outflankers from my right.

 

He set up first, psyfleman on my left, stormraven centrally, LR on the right. I had setup everything centrally, combat squaded heavy weapon tacticals, pred, and rifleman on the cliff, with everything else below and in front, except my messenger’s rhino which was hidden amongst rocks off on my left flank. He infiltrated his vindicaire into the castle ruin on the far side of the river. I, thankfully, stole the initiative.

 

Turn 1 – I roasted a wound off the Vindicare with my LRR, then pinged the last one off with massed bolter and SB fire from the rhinos and their contents. The attack bikes missed spectacularly on left the flank against the Psyfleman, though they did manage to blow up a servo skull by being within 6” of it. I blew up the LR with the vindis on the right, and took out the other servo skull in the process. Next to be blown up was the SR, courtesy of my pred. His TDA libby took a wound, as well as some purifiers, in the resulting explosion. I also rolled a 6 to glance, and a 6 to immobilize his dread which was in the rear grapples, which meant his dread was destroyed. Best performance by my pred, ever. To top it off my plasma cannons took a few shots at the purifiers and claimed a few victims.

 

- In his turn he killed a biker on my left with fire from the psyfleman. Thawn and squad attempted to assault my bikers on the right, but failed due to terrain checks.

 

Turn 2 – I moved up with almost everything. Blasted Thawn’s termies with vindis, SG, and tactical PCs. Only a couple survived due to bad scatter. I rolled up, disembarked, and shot up the purifiers with the flamer/melta tacs, LRR and Vulkan. I failed to kill his psyfleman with my rifleman & pred due to cover saves. Then came the assault on the purifiers by my hammernators & vulkan. Vulkan got force weaponed, but the termies stomped the purifiers, wounded the GM, and his libby died from No Retreat!

 

- In my opponent’s turn, he assaulted one of my tacs with his dread, with no result. His GM perils, taking off another wound, then my hammernators squished him. My bikes on the right got assaulted and died, thanks to Thawn’s squad.

 

Turn 3 – My messenger reached his deployment zone, completely unmolested. Since there was little else to attack, my termies, vindis, SG, and LRR finished off Thawn and any stragglers from his squad, while the tacs stay in combat with the dread.

 

- Thawn got up, and did nothing as he was sorely outclassed by whatever was near him. Two strike squads deepstriked and immobilized my pred (after I let him shoot in the assault phase, since he forgot, and I wanted to be sporting). His dread made the tacs retreat from combat this turn, thankfully.

 

Turn 4 – My tacs retreated due to the dread being within 6”, as well as one of the strike squads. I had to kill them both this turn, or run the risk of having a combat squad being run off the table. All tacs in the vicinity shot up the two strike squads, and one meltagun into the dread, wiping them all out with the help of my rifleman & pred. Thawn dies, again.

 

- Thawn gets up (do you see a pattern here?). Strikes outflanked from reserves in razorbacks on my right flank, disembarked, shot, and killed a few Salamanders.

 

Turn 5 – All my tacticals loaded up into rhinos and moved over the bridge in the movement phase. I killed Thawn, again, then proceeded to blow up the razors and kill strike squads with the LRR, vindis, and SG. So at this point my opponent had nothing left, except for Thawn, so I figured I’d tabled him. However, with a ruling from the judges we had to finish out the game due to the chance of Thawn getting back up.

 

- In my opponent’s turn Thawn does NOT get up.

 

Turn 6 –Just to make it more fun, all my forces moved as close to and formed a ring around Thawn with the SG and hammernators at the center so that he couldn't break out.

 

- In bottom of turn 7 Thawn got up, again, and assaults the SG. Thawn manages to kill a couple, but then dies in return, and WILL NEVER GET BACK UP AGAIN!

 

Result – Massacre, 24 points

 

Round 2 vs. GK (Coteaz warbands)

 

Setup – There was farmhouse ruins on the left and right of the board, and on the other side of the road, which cut the board roughly half. Low stone walls lined the road with small groups of hedges on my side.

 

I setup first, centrally, while my opponent set up on my left flank, but forgot to place his Vindicaire, which was a great relief to me. However, he does manage to steal the initiative.

 

Turn 1 – My opponent moved up across the road and pops smoke on most his vehicles. He failed to hurt my vehicles with his psyflemen, but did manage to kill my exposed bike squad on the left flank.

 

- In response I moved up with everything to attempt to take & hold the center objective. My pred, being ever so usuful this particular day, blew up a stormraven, which kills a few occupants and forces a MM dread and the TDA libby’s squad to disembark.

 

Turn 2 – He shot at some of my rhinos and did little damage. What really hurt was the immobilization of my LRR with the MM dread due to combat. My combat squad which deployed from their rhino into a farmhouse got assaulted, lost, and ran. This squad retreated to the last turn of game due to really short retreat rolls and always having enemies nearby.

 

- My rhinos and a vindi moved up to take center, blew up storm raven and killed some occupants. The LRR immobilized the MM dread with a point-blank MM shot while the nearby tacticals finished off the warband which was now out of combat. The second vindicator blew huge chunks out of the SR squads since they were packed so closely together.

 

Turn 3 – The opposing psyflemen caused some more damage to the sallies’ rhinos, mostly only storm bolters got ripped off. Coteaz’ squad killed a rhino, and then proceeded to kill the now disembarked combat squad in CQC.

 

- Retaliation was swift in response to the loss of a precious combat squad. The second attack bike squadron blew up a razorback and a tac squad took out another. As a result, the contents got shot to death. Very quickly, three warbands were wiped out, including a techmarine and the libby.The hammernators and Vulkan helped, though Vulkan got force weaponed, again. A psyfleman also took some damage from long range fire as there were no more pressing targets available.

 

Turn 4 – A psyfleman rushed up to the objective while coteaz got back into a chimera and rolled towards the objective.The vindicaire finally arrived on the board from outflank, but was not of any use since LOS was blocked due to so many of his wrecked vehicles. A psyfleman killed some marines who happened to be out of their rhino.

 

- I brought all my forces to the center objective, and destroyed Coteaz’ chimera. The attack bikes destroyed another psyfleman in the meantime, leaving only 3 on the board, while the Sternguard and a combat squad assaulted the rushing psyfleman due to poor rolling with meltas.

 

Turn 5 – Now this is where things got a little ugly. Coteaz moved up to within 6” of the objective, and assaulted into the psyfleman combat. One psyflemen killed a rhino with shooting, then the second one killed the disembarked squad, which was a serious blow. At this point time was called. I didn’t get to play my half of the turn, because my opponent played his last turn so slowly. It took him more than 15 minutes to move, shoot and assault only 3 units. Normally it only would’ve taken five, but he drew out his movement of models as long as he could by talking and going back-and-forth a few times. I nearly called in a judge, but decided against it since I had a victory in hand with 2 more troops on the objective. It would’ve been 3 if I had gotten my turn. I guess that was his way to pay me back for not letting him infiltrate his vindicare in the middle of his first turn…

 

Result – Minor Victory, 17 points

 

Round 3 vs. DA Deathwing

 

Setup –The table had a stone altar in the center, with some odd snake walls in the north and south, which we agreed completely blocked LOS. Some rocky outcroppings were in the NW and SE table quarters, with some refinery silos in the SW.

 

I setup forward, combat squaded, in the SW quarter. He setup opposite, in roughly the same formation, though his whirlwind was hidden in the back (note: this whirly’s shots never scattered once, but never killed anything all game). My opponent scout moved his Ravenwing bikes up, but failed to steal the initiative from me.

 

Turn 1 – The LRR moved up 7”. While the centrally deployed bikes moved farther north, the bikes on the right turbo boosted. In support or the right flank, the SG rolled a full 12”, and combat squads ran up into cover. During the shooting phase the vindis shook a LR, the RW bikes got killed off by fire from my bikes, rhinos, and tacs. My leftover rhinos covered the rears of the vindis.

 

- He moved up with LRs, assaulted my LRR, SG rhino, and Rifleman. All of which was really my fault, since I was too eager to move up. His termies blow up the SG rhino, along with 2 SG. I got lucky and no hits were landed on my LRR. My rifleman did not fare as well however, and was immobilized. The typhoon killed a biker on right, but the other bike stuck around.

 

Turn 2 – My LRR moved out without the hammernators, but with Vulkan inside. The SG blew up a LR, and my hammernators assaulted 2 termie squads, and won, but thankfully stay stuck in. My vindis did little damage due to bad scatter. The rest of my army moved up to press the attack.

 

- Belial’s squad arrived by DS behind my lines, and fanned out. The A.Bike tried to bust open the LRR, but failed. However, a squad of termies assaulted the LRR and managed to immobilize it. My hammernators took out the termies, but had a third squad to contend with next turn, as it had deep striked nearby.

 

Turn 3 – We rolled to see which mission we were supposed to accomplish, and it turned out to be a land grab to control terrain pieces. Since we were the top two players, and were playing for all the marbles, we agreed that having a scoring unit within 3” of terrain gave you a point. No contesting. Just count up how many you’re close to. We figured that would be the most definitive way to come to a decision.

 

In my turn, I pulled back my tacs, vindis, and pred to shoot up Belial, but sadly only caused three casualties. Vulkan got out of the immobile LRR, and moved away from the termies. I was tired of him getting insta-killed, and therefore made him a harder target to chase and kill. This baited a squad of termies into the sights of my PCs. My bikes on the left and a combat squad shot up his tacticals, killing a few, while the SG softened up the termies for the hammernators. The hammernators then charged the third squad of termies, and won, but remained locked in combat.

 

- His northmost terminators moved away from the LRR in pursuit of Vulkan, as planned. Belial’s squad assaulted two combat squads. He ‘deactivated’ his power fists, and therefore stayed in combat. I later questioned this in a different combat, and the ruling went my way, since you cannot choose to not use your special CC weapons. My mistake was not asking the first time. His termies finally killed off mine, but was left with only two.

 

Turn 4 – My combat squads used this turn to move away Belial’s squad. Vulkan got away from the nearby termies in a vacated rhino, and flamed them, with help from the LRR, killing a few. The vindis moved up to prepare to take out the second LR and hold the center of the table. A combat squad attempted to shoot the victorious termies, but failed to kill any, though the SG did kill the Speeder as compensation.

 

- My opponent moved what was left of his northern termies around, shot some tacs, failed to kill any. Belial finished off the tac squads and moved out to take on some more. After their victory against my hammernators the two termies assaulted my combat squad, to no effect.

 

Turn 5 – A tac squad moved to the center altar, in case the game ended this turn. The vindis killed the LR, forcing his tacticals to get out, and some termies from Belial’s squad exploded due to the second shot. In true Firedrake fashion, the SG charged in to relieve the now invaluable tactical marines from the onslaught of the terminators. The SG managed to kill them off before the termies struck. The tacs consolidated to grab more terrain, while another squad took out the last terminator of the northern squad.

 

- Belial’s squad got revenge on my tactical marines at the center altar, while his tacs hid from my vindis’ fury.

 

Turn 6 – My vindis turned to face Belial’s squad, and managed to kill Belial and termie, but the apothecary survived. Everything else in range killed off his tactical marines, but two survived. All my other tacticals rushed to grab as many pieces of terrain as possible.

 

- In my opponents turn, the apothecary and remaining tactical marines moved to secure as many terrain pieces as possible.

 

Result – 7 terrain pieces for the DA, 10 for the Salamanders. A massacre worth 23 points.

 

Overall, with 64 points, I won first place! Second place was 56 points, then 54 points for third.

As for my winnings, GW called the other day and was looking for which army to send me. I’d thought long and hard on it, and decided to get something completely different from my Sallies. I went with Orks.

 

I’m currently attempting to find a way to finance a trip to the finals, while also trying to get the time off work. I really hope I can make it, since I’ve worked too hard to get there and not go. Only time will tell.

[Squirrel]

wow you really decimated, was really pleased to how well your attack bikes and vindis performed.

 

liked seeing you move tanks when stuff got near them.

 

How did the predator perform? i can never seem to justify their existance in my lists.

 

One suggestion I would make on your melta tacts squads is to run:

10 tacts 180

flamer, MM, cbmelta

 

for 5pts get a flamer out of it, get points from swapping seige shield to dozers.

[Muctar]

I always make sure to have vehicles moving when the enemy is nearby. I build my lists to keep my marines alive as long as possible, and keeping those metal boxes alive is a huge part of the plan.

 

My bikes always seem to clean house. I really should get them Firedrake Honours.

 

My vindis did fantastic, since they were ignored for the most part. Anytime I use them they either get blown up right away, or survive the whole game to deal out massive damage.

 

Throughout the entire tournament the pred did much better than it had ever performed. Its most notable kills were 3 Stormravens, and a GK Dread (actually got 1 SR and the dread at the same time!), not to mention all the casualties and mayhem caused to occupants and surrounding vehicles. An AC/LC spons pred is a great transport opener. Anything AV 12 and below is looking at some real pain (ie: stormravens), while AV 14 can be threatened when no other more promising targets are available. Plus it's almost a steal at 120 points!

 

I'll think about making those changes to my melta tacs. Gotta test it beforehand.

[ShinyRhino]

Glad you had fun! That's my local shop. I'd planned to be there to observe and report, but the wife had me digging fence posts all day.

 

Congrats on the win!

[Muctar]

Thanks! :cuss

 

Unfortunately it seems I won't be able to make the finals since the rest of life seems to be conspiring against me. It was a good run though. I'll keep trying until I can make it, someday.