Tournament battlereport

[Chaplain Lucifer]

This weekend we had a national event for wargames, included there was a 40K tournament that I participated in.

This is the account of that event.

My list and performance breakdown

Belial - TH&SS . Saw CC only twice. Served as ablative armour. Setup is solid but I feel I need to experiment with LC's.

Terminator squad - 5 TH&SS apothecary, banner cyclone. Banner almost played no part same as apothecary. the 5 storm shields were usefull

4x terminator squad - cyclone, 2xTH&SS, Chainfist - good setup. storm bolters saw limited use

2x Land speeder typhoon - workhorses as everything with cyclone in it

3 bikes (2 melta, PF) '+ Attack bike with MM - always useful.

After dabling with 2 bike squads I decided to go with Krewl's approach and include speeders instead a choice that proved fortunate since the typhoon range was an advantage against my match ups.

Round 1 - Vs Eldar. deployment quarters. objective have scoring units grab quarters.

I got a mech eldar opponent that bunched in his quarter.

I played overly aggressive with one squad and saw them reduced to one man after a fusillade from scatter laser war walkers. after that I kept my opponent at arms lenght using 48" to my advantage, denying him reach except for fire prism and eldar missile launcher.

Bikes outflanked, but entered from my short edge, attack bike entered from opponent short edge, failed MM shot and engaged warwalkers in CC...it killed 2 warwalkers and tied them until end of game.

Game was a long range trade of shots to my advantage... but in 5th turn, my opponent moved falcon in a quarter of mine grabbing it from me, game ended and I had 1 quarter to his 2 quarters. Bitter end because I had more kill points and VP's (for tie purposes)

Defeat.

Round 2 Vs Eldar. 5 objectives

What? another eldar.. and also with warwalkers and bladestorm dire avengers? my luck....

He reserved all his army, I started on the table and moved for the center where I could control all 5 objectives from there. I figured that since he entered by reserves I could weather his shooting and kill his units piecemeal...

No plan survives contact with enemy because after a fusillade of bladestorm and scatter laser one terminator unit was gone. The whole game I did my best to silence teh warwalkers and dire avengers but to no avail due to cover saves and bad dice on my part. MM attack bike failed again it's shot after entering through outflank.

By 5th turn I still had 3 objectives and my opponent only 1, game went for a turn more and by the end of sixth I had 1 objective and he had 2. I blame my deathwing apothecary.. he failed single 2+ save and a FNP save, then my command squad folded under the fire of all his army, with little AP2 I could get some termies to reach CC and start rampaging his lines, but attack died on it's tracks following apothecary demise.

Defeat

Round 3 vs Chaos Demons.

After 2 tiring games, I was paired with a friend that I play regularly. None of us were looking forward to play so we declared draw and went to an Epic 40K demo.

Round 4 vs grey knights. dawn of war. Kill points with VP margin

Never having fought GK or even looked through the codex quickly the rumors of cheese had proven themselves true to some extent.

I was facing a special character named Lucan (sp?) 2 10 men squad with 4 psycannons, 2 tne men squads with rhinos, psycannons, thunderhammer, power weapons... and 3 psyriflemen dreads. my opponent got to go first deploying 2 squads 24" front , thus foiling any plans I had to keep him over 24". I divided into bothe flanks trying to get him to choose one so my other flank could be safe which proved a good decision.

The rending psycannon fusillade demolished 4 termies from a squad as an opener... his rhinos advanced from his long table edge and popped smoke.

The rest of the game was me back pedaling out of the 24" range and avoiding his rhino bourne squads festooned with power weapons. Belial went toe to toe with his HQ and after a ld test and a 3+ rolled his already dead HQ killed Belial. ^_^

game ended a draw.. I killed his HQ, a rhino, a purgator squad and a psydread.. he killed belial, bike squad, attack bike and a termie squad. even KP's, roughly same VP's..

Draw.

Round 5 - Vs dark eldar. KP's + Suicide squad (squad gave KP's to owner when killed)

Well, well, well.. 20 dark lances -_-

I blundered my deploy , deploying too close to him forgetting about oppen topped transports rule..

So after his first turn I has 1 less terminator squad and an archon+ incubi squad in my midst. I fired all I had into it and after archon ate a krak missile and died, the 3 incubi left were easy prey for belial and friends.. but thanks to that I had all those dark lances pointed at me.

Fortune favored me because storm shields and bad die rolls from my opponent saw few terminators dew... and then I managed to start getting some easy Kp«s from raider (and ravagers). attack bike MM finally did something nice and managed to down 2 ravagers (my kraks were only stunning them). I started gaining the upper hand and had only to worry about venoms and their cargo. Game ended with few DE standing and near half my army still there.

Win.

good tournament, I had some fun, and had I known i would have taken a different list with 3 land raiders just to troll the eldar and Gk's that had little ways to deal with AV14.

Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes are welcome.

[Isiah]

good tournament, I had some fun, and had I known i would have taken a different list with 3 land raiders just to troll the eldar and Gk's that had little ways to deal with AV14.

 

Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes are welcome.

 

No rotten tomatoes, but ...

 

 

That's an interesting observation CL. Great match reports. I'm surprised the Apoth was so rubbish - but not so surprised with teh banner as you were mostly at 24"+ range. I never take a banner anyway for the same reasons.

 

I think what we'd like to know is, with limited storm bolter useage, would more storm shields have upped your survivability to keep a few more units viable.

 

Would've been interesting to see how you'd fare against your friend's Daemons. How do you normally io against them?

 

 

Cheers

I

[Chaplain Lucifer]

In the apothecaries defense, there wasn't enough CC or small arms directed towards his squad for him to shine.. although when there was he failed and was the only casualty of the squad. In all the games I either wanted my opponent at arms length or wasn't able to approach, thus the apoth and banner had no big part in it.

I still vouch for the apothecary but I don't think I'll include a banner in next encounters. Dropping banner and scrounging some points I may fit a 3rd Typhoon land speeder...

 

Storm bolters... they also never had the chance to shine although they did help a bit vs DE and GK... but nothing too relevant. IMHO the increased survivability of having more storm shields may outweigh the loss of storm bolters, at least for me since Meta-game around here has plenty of mech and almost no hordes.

 

 

Against Chos demons it's 50/50. We got a bit of bad luck in the tournament and the lists didn't deliver their full potential. If it's a kill point mission I usually have the advantage since he has more kills points and some are "easy" to grab, but I can't grab objectives as well as he does since it means I'll have to split my squads a bit. Against him storm bolters, apothecary and banner really shine, curiously enough.... The mission that we were supposed to play was a variant of the old Recon mission from 3rd ed. meaning he could deepstrike in my deploy scoring alot of points "easily".

 

 

Like I mentioned in my previous post , 3 land raider crusader could've got me an edge since they protect terminators and pack a decent anti infantry/anti tank punch.

That's probably my next iteration, vulnerable as it is from deepstriking meltaguns, but nothing like a good castle to counter that...

[Cactus]

Thanks for the pictures and battle reports. I always like reading how Deathwing armies fare on the tabletop.

 

I'm intrigued why you tried to keep your opponents at arms length (well, I can understand why you would with power-weapon equipped Grey Knights!). Even the guys with storm bolters are more dangerous in close combat than they are when shooting. Close combat is often safer too as most units attack with strength 3 or 4 and allow armour saves, and it discourages high-strength large blasts being thrown in your direction. I appreciate the benefits of popping off a few bolter shots to thin the enemy's numbers but in my limited experience if you want to be sure of killing something with terminators you charge it.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Cactus, these particular opponents I had a need to pursuit long range firefights instead of closing in.

First eldar had 6 warwalkers with scatter laser, Eldrad Ulthan, 2x8 dire avengers and 8 harlequins, so if I got close I would be hammered by shooting and mopped in CC. He also didn't make any efforts getting closer so since he had 36" max range and I had 48" I decided to play it to my strenghts.

 

Second eldar player had 9 warwalkers (6 with scatter laser, 3 with missiles) , 10 dire avengers and a farseer casting doom and guide. I tried to get close to hammer him in CC but didn't have the chance because of the firepower... plus I was sitting on the objectives so I tried to kill the warwalkers that were the nuissance and weather out anything else. With hindsight I could have dislocated from the objectives with all squads and swamp him, even a single terminator would be enough in CC but I feared having no time to resume objective grabbing.

 

 

Against Dark eldar arm's lenght maybe exageration.. I had to keep distance until archon and incubi were taken care of.. from them on I actively sought out CC were possible but my opponent wasn't very keen on engaging since he had no other CC units.

[Cactus]

Thanks, that makes sense. Mid-range shooting with guide was how I used to play my Ulthwé army. I can understand why sitting on the objectives and daring them to come and shift you could be a good idea, especially when the alternative is to get strung out across the table and lose the objectives. Mobility is the Achilles heel of the infantry Deathwing force. Did you deep strike in any of the games?

[Droma]

With the lack of mobility for deathwing your best strategy in the majority of objective games is to focus your efforts on killing his troops and bubble wrap your objective from there. The less troops they have the easier it is for you to contest their objectives which means you have to control fewer to win.

 

Looking at those pictures too you suffered a massive amount from not having LoS blocking terrain. Cover is nice but when most of your dudes are rocking 2+/3++ preventing the torrent of fire is a better option. You just don't have the guys or firepower to sit in the open and trade shots.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

@Cactus. No I didn't deepstrike.. only game I considered was vs GK. In most tables it was hard to find LoS blocking terrain for bikes and when there was it wasn't to my liking. And I avoid DS-ing without homers

 

@Droma. Yes that's correct. No LoS blocking terrain means that I can't isolate parts of opponents army and must trade shots with the whole. I don't really need cover but I need terrain features to block LoS , something that most tables I played it had little of or in places it didn't get used.

[krewl]

Hello Chaplain Lucifer.

 

I get the feeling my list did not work so well for you yet :tu: .

 

Horrible open tables to be certain, that does hurt your list as you can not deny any shooting.

The apothecary should be golden versus things like warwalker barrages, which is why I tend to deep strike Belial an friends up closer a bit (But on a safe location, no where in front o the enemy, just closer so they hit cc a turn or 2 earlier.).

 

I hardly even deep strike except for the option above and versus some armies in Dawn of war. Then I reserve 3 squads, place 2 and DWA 2 in turn 1 for a large upfield presence.

 

 

 

 

 

This is getting a bit messy, but it comes down to what I'm trying to say. You can improve your game and do better, you just need a bit of practice.

I placed 2nd at the GT only after I playd the same-ish list fo a year. so few models takes a bit of time to master and more impotantly it takes skilled opponents to test against. Not knowing GK and what they do points to a lack of tournament experience or a really wierd local scene as I tend to see tons of GK everywhere.

 

- 1st game

DW do not have enough firepower to down all skimmers in a game versus eldar. Yes you had the ranged firepower advantage, but without using your cc power it would be very lucky to down all eldar skimmers which then turboboost and contest. That is how eldar play, they do not engage and outlive the turns and claim one, contest others late game. (Also why I dislike eldar and playing versus them, feels like they try to just play as little as possible and trick you in the end ;) )

 

- Game 2

Again warwalkers (So this also counts for the unit in game 1) they shoot a lot. make them target belial and crew (DS and run to spread out if there's a prism near, else just stand as a blob and shoot. (Or use run to close up if you think you are over 12" away.)

Thats where belials 3 wounds and FnP should shine though you can never fix bad dice with the apoth dying fast, that just happens somedays.

 

- Game 3

Well played sir ;)

 

- Game 4

Thing is that this army is not in itself a shooty army, but one that shoots to surpres and demech while you aproach. Even GK will fold in cc (Though they are more scare with all power weapons) just watch out for grenades that GK have, units with those are best avoided and shot to death. thing is that when charged they have only one attack. 10 attacks (2 are non power weapons if psycannons) are just 5 hits, 2,5 wounds (0,5 wounds is a non power weapon hit. take 2 on the storm shields and th normal on on a normal guy. They don't really do a lot in cc and your hammers and other S8 will hurt back. (12 attacks at S8, 6 hits, 5 kills. (And your sarges i4 attacks another 0,75 wounds. ) say you lost a guy (Always drop the sarge first, they take all the saves that I can place on them, I promote to sarge often in my army ;) ) Still 5 dead, so you are winning the cc.

 

Also focus missiles on demeching units since his expensive purifiers (the ones with 4 psycannons) still die like normal marins versus kraks. (fargs are an option when he's bunched, else I prefer kraks almost always.) Same goes for priority, closest first, on foot they die faster cause you remove krak hits and some sb's, while you save on 2+ versus their 3+ (and none for kraks).

 

On suchs an empty table reserve the speeders, same for the bikers (Outflank them). then go for rhino kills with your missiles at range for a killpoint lead. stay bunched together and out of 24"as long as possible and that kind of match is winnable.

 

- Game 5

Same goes versus the DE, you waited for the guys cc hitters to be dead, just lure them by presenting either Belial and his team as charge bait (Again, the DWA might be an option for this, else just place them up front in deployment). Expect a unit to die or if belials unit tie them up and countercharge with 2 units deathwing. Very few things in the game get a chance versus 3 units DW, so staying in close support range works wonders. 20 darkllances is harsh though on a table that open. There's a reason the rulebook says 25% terrain in a good mix of LOS blocking and area terrain. So no matter how good you played it will always be an uphill fight.

 

How you should play that (at lest hat I would try) is keeping at range and misile his mobility. if that charge t1 had not happened you'd have been ok by hitting his AV10 opentoppd things with krakked, even better if you manage to demech the assaulty unit.

 

Al that beeing said, it's mant in a positive note and based on the little info you gave about the games. so I might be horrible off ;) (And typing in a rush).

So just see it as tips for next time, these are not rotten tomatoes.

 

P.S.

Agreed that the banner is not a must have, I'm trying this list dropping the bikers + Attack bike and taking 3 speeders + zeke. dunno how it goes, we will se saturday (3 game tourny)

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Hi krewl, thanks for the tips. They're welcome since you have more experience with the list. My experience before the tournament was limited to games vs Chaos demons and blood angels, Eldar and Dark Eldar I've faced in the past but not with DW and as for GK I didn't even read their codex beforehand and our local GK players are still building their armies so they have almost no games. :lol:

 

I am thinking too of switching for the 3rd land speeder although I got fond of the outflanking melta bikes despite their erratic performance (that I can't blame totally on them) .

 

I hope to hear how the tournament went for you, cheers!

[krewl]

Also I might add that a list with suchs small number is vulnerable to a streak of bad dice. They just happen and because you have so few models you are hurt harder by it.

 

I have two horrible examples, one where I could not wreck or explode any eldar skimmer despite 58 S8 shots and 10 TH hits during the game... All I did was shake, stun and remove a weapon here and there. not even 1 immobilised to finish up later, it was a horrible game to play cause I didn;t do anything wrong.

 

Same was for a match versus GK where a stormraven would nog go down, and I fluffed all cc attacks in the combat later on. T2 my bikes and speeders came on, did absolutely nothing but some shake & stunned and T3 his turn I was dead as I was down 2 speeders, 1 bike + attack bike, 2 units DW and belial. 2 units of DW where standing there to be assaulted the turn after and all objectives where his. The only game in a tournement ever so far where I just folded and said "I'll finishthis if you want to but grats on the 20-0."

 

Games saturday will be a challenge, 1 GK, 5 SW, 3 (including me) Deathwing, 2 nids, 2 Deamons (Both fatecrusher), 1 CSM, 1 SM, and 2 Eldar. At least 10 players I know of are high level tournament scene players.

3 I know to be a lot less good, so they are in for tough rounds.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Here you can see some pics of teh tables and other armies present. https://picasaweb.google.com/11017697742153...eat=directlink#

[Vazzy]

Congrats on the tourney Lucifer. I can't really give you any tips as I run a greenwing army, but it sounds like a bit of bad luck and poor tables. Nice pictures as well

[Droma]

Pictures 5 and 6 looked to be about the best tables and even those were not all that great. I'm just surprised how little real LoS blocking terrain there is at tournaments considering how easy it is to cut/glue/spray paint foam board.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Yeah, I knew tables would be somewhat open, one of the reasons I went DW instead of orks. In almost every table the middle was a killing ground, which is quite different from my usual games where we set up a fair amount of LoS blocking terrain.

[RayJ]

You've got a solid force at your disposal there. I think Krewl's advice is pretty spot on.

 

Something you should play with for several games is forcing yourself to deep strike Belial's squad, and doing so without using the teleport homers on your bikes. Proper deep strike placement is a skill acquired through practice, and it will open up more opportunities for you. Really, your bikes should be almost always outflanking anyway, and you'll be bringing the DW squad down on turn 1 in most cases.

 

Also, the terrain at your event could have been much improved, and you did feel the hurt there. A few of the tables with ruins look solid, but the rest seem to have large defense lines to hinder movement out of the starting area or have masses of low-lying terrain.

 

Just a topic for you to discuss with the TOs and such: fully themed terrain boards frequently stack too high in a single type of terrain. Each board should have a mix of ruins, hills, forests, and small walls with at least 3 pieces big enough to fully block sight to a rhino. one should be towards the center of the table, and one on each side of the table. Terrain should be relatively symmetrical along a diagonal. This allows for a fair setup regardless of which table side you are on (people are unlikely to change sides in a large event where they have to walk around 5 other tables to do so), but still makes choosing a corner in spearhead relevant.

 

The mixture of hills, LOS blocking, and low terrain gives all armies an equal footing. Too much low terrain, and gunlines mow down the opposition. Too much dense terrain and fast assault armies can overwhelm the gunline too quickly. The suggested setup makes fire lanes deadly and numerous while allowing the opponent to protect a squad or two from the bulk of the firepower from certain angles. creates very tactical gameplay.

 

That wasn't directed at you to say you did anything wrong, but it is good to know what terrain is really appropriate for the current rule set. You can use that information to recommend changes and make your next tournament experience much better. I like to ask the TOs what their terrain usually consists of when I'm going someplace new, so I can pick the correct variation of my list to use for the event.