Back from the Mechanicon, IW win over-all

[littlbitz]

Well, I just got home and am exhausted, but I wanted to quickly post that I took over-all at the Mechanicon, which was held at the War Store Weekend.

 

It was truly a great event, and the Mechanicon continues to be my favorite GT every year, and was pumped to hear that it is a go for next year.

 

A big thank you goes out to Tony and crew.

 

I took some pictures and will hopefully be updating this thread tomorrow with more detailed information.

[Sception]

Congratulations! Definitely looking forward to further coverage.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

And you did it by going armour-heavy :lol:

Some people are such scallywags!

 

Well done :tu:

[Kol Saresk]

Armor heavy? Okay, I want to know exactly what happened with every detail it can muster. Is it safe to assume that you used the 6th Edition CSM Codex and not the Base Heresy list?

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Armor heavy? Okay, I want to know exactly what happened with every detail it can muster. Is it safe to assume that you used the 6th Edition CSM Codex and not the Base Heresy list?

 

Some things have been covered in his blog: right here.

:lol:

[Kol Saresk]

Ah, I was unaware there was a blog. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Prot]

Way to go bro!

 

Kickin' butt and taking names is what Iron Winners do! Grats on the win. Looking forward to your follow up.

[Smurfalypse]

Very cool, grats man. Glad to hear your armor saturation list panned out well!

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Question: I may have missed something, but how did you put two power lances on those Terminators when power lances aren't among the options for Terminators to take?

[Baluc]

Question: I may have missed something, but how did you put two power lances on those Terminators when power lances aren't among the options for Terminators to take?

 

The option is power weapon, and then modeled as lances, same as every codex.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Question: I may have missed something, but how did you put two power lances on those Terminators when power lances aren't among the options for Terminators to take?

 

The option is power weapon, and then modeled as lances, same as every codex.

 

Ahh, okay, it's just a modeling change, not a points one. Got it.

[littlbitz]

Alright, let me try this again.

Stupid Hurricane, was a page into typing, and got logged out some how.

Anyway, let me start by saying I really had a great weekend. This was the 4th year for the Mechanicon, and it is always a great event. Sadly (not for me) but for the Mechanicon and the War Store Weekend attendance was low.

I think this had to do with several issues, the move of the Mechanicon Venue, the incoming Hurricane Sandy, and the fact that the event was the same as Feast of Blades all had an impact on the event. Still well over 100 gamers attended, and they are already planning next year.

In addition to 40k I should also mention that there was gaming available for whatever game suited you. Flames of War, War Machine (run by Chris Nanry of the Colonial), WHFB, all had events, I even saw Heavy Gear and Battle Tech being played.

If I had one complaint it would be where they put us 40k guys, I guess we are a bit rowdy at times, but they really put us far from the action. I think they realize this and are planning to consolidate things more to promote more interaction among gamers in between games.

Above you can see me and my boy at the Mechanicon, the Hulk-Ork is still a WIP, but will get a suitable helmet in the near future, and by the time they are done will look more like an Ork Nob than the Hulk-Ork he appears to be now. Very cool...

I think I am going to change up things a bit as far as coverage of things go for a change, typically I start with an over-view of each game, and then with good intentions say I'm going to wrap things up with a discussion of my list and how things worked, I'm going to do it in reverse this time because I tend to skimp on unit and list discussion, then I'll talk about my games and the armies I faced.

My list was an odd one, when you talk to most competitive gamers, I have posted it on my Blog, but for the lazy here is what I took.

HQ: Warp Smith

10x Chaos Marines, 2x MG, Combi-MG, PF

Rhino with Havoc

5x Marines

10x Cultists, Shotgun, Heavy Stubber

10x Cultists, Heavy Stubber

5x Chaos Termies, with 2x Power Axe, 2x Power Lance, 2x Combi-MG, 1x Combi-PG, Chain Fist

Land Raider Transport

Defiler with Havoc

Forge Fiend of Ecto-Plasma hell

Chaos Vindicator with Siege Shield

1499.

Before I go into my list analysis, I will state that even though I did win Over-All, I did not massacre all of my opponents, I ended up pretty much 3 wins and 2 draws. The scoring in each mission is done on a point system, with that being your battle score. I'll explain in more detail as I describe the missions, but suffice it to say that it is extremely difficult to get a 20 in some of the missions, In fact I think that after the first game there was one 11 and I had a 6 (with 6-7 being the norm across the room).

Every game I had was a nail biter, and I only heard of a couple of games where people were actually tabled. (even if you table your opponent, you still had to calculate if you had enough turns left to take the objectives in the game.)

Let me go through my list with some analysis.

I think when we look at the list I have designed, it looks as though I have taken a lot of units that are sUb-par when compared singly against another unit in the same section of the Codex. For example, most hard core list builders will say, Havocs are better than the Defiler.

I think when you look at this particular list you have to look at the list as a whole, and how the units work with one another.

Let me start with the Warpsmith. I love this guy, he is cheap choice for a Warlord and has a variety of special skills. Of course he has some weaknesses. WS4, no invuln. But what is his role in my army? I normally keep him hanging back, preferably behind cover with his Chaos Marine Squad (the small 5 man), where he stays next to the Defiler to keep him alive.

His other role on occasion? depending on the mission, I can also mount him up into the Land Raider to move into enemy territory to take an objective, or go for line breaker.

Challenges? I use my unit champion for those, no, the champion doesn't have any wargear. His purpose isn't to win the challenge, its to free up the Warpsmiths attacks to take out grunts in the unit I am fighting against.

People have also commented that the Shatter Defenses rule is situational, I really have not played a game yet, that this has not been a help.

5-man marine squad: These guys protect the Warpsmith. Other than that they only move out on their own if the Warpsmith is out of danger and can keep the Defiler running in peace. Even then they stay close, as their main priority is to protect the Warlord. They do this well, I didn't lose my Warlord at all during the whole of the Tournament.

The Ten man squad: In practice games I was using these guys all wrong, sending them forward trying to get their MGs close, and they always got blasted to pieces, I only have one squad like this so can't just throw them into the fray as much as I would like to. Once I started playing them smarter, they started performing. acting as a fast response unit, or following up behind my armor, instead of leading the charge protects them a bit. This is important because they are a scoring unit, and with only 4 in the army they need to survive.

(The real stars of the show?)

My two ten man Cultist units. Many have commented to me that I should take them in one squad of 20, I disagree. They are fragile, and if one bad morale check means you lose them all. No, for me 2 smaller squads works better. These guys are the sneaky ones. hiding in the back field and discouraging foolhardy deepstrikes by taking up space. Camping objectives, and even mounting up in the Land Raider to move out and take an objective or line breaker moving across field and bailing out last minute using the Land Raider for cover.

Care must be used as I said before the units are extremely fragile, but with so much going on in my list they are typically ignored, and have free reign.

Ah, my Terminators. These guys were causing me much frustration in practice. Mounting them up in the Land Raider, I was pointing them at the enemy a launching my attack. Time and time again this just was not working, I didn't want to give up on them because they are so cool, and I love my Land Raider, but they were forcing my Land Raider into the Melta range of the enemy, It was a disaster. I don't know why, but after game one of the tournament it dawned on me. I need to Deep Strike these buggers, and use the Land Raider as Fire Power early game, and as a Transport for other units late game. This has worked brilliantly and I haven't looked back since. In 6th edition, people really panic when 5 Terminators Deep Strike into your lines.

I should note, that it has been my experience in 6th that many armies are not equipped to appropriately deal with 14AV. Maybe that is the wrong way to put it, as every army had some means, but when combined with my other armor threats it must have seemed a lower priority and because of this it survived every game throughout the Tournament.

The Defiler, was a beast all weekend, and survived every game, again I believe because of the dynamic of my list. Though to be fair, in one game it took a lot of abuse, but between my Invulnerable save, the self repair and the Warpsmith he stayed up and running. With Daemonic Possession my opponents couldn't even stop the barrage. He fired every turn, of every game I played across 5 games. Didn't always hit, but was always pumping out S8, AP3 big pie plates of ouch.

The Forge Fiend and Vindicator where the bullet magnets of the army, and I would typically lose one or the other in the course of a game, and at least once I lost the Vindicator because of a foolish move on my part, allowing my side to be exposed to multiple plasma guns. However, If I could get these guys to survive until the Terminators arrived, it changed things and bought them more time to wreak some havoc. Nobody wants the kind of fire power these guys can throw down running around and they both become public enemies one and two. So until these guys and the Terminators die, the rest of my army can pretty much do whatever it wants.

Next up, I'll start a game by game play, and explain the missions and post the lists I faced.

[Killax]

Great! Congrats and great army (and blog)

[the jeske]

The Ten man squad: In practice games I was using these guys all wrong, sending them forward trying to get their MGs close, and they always got blasted to pieces, I only have one squad like this so can't just throw them into the fray as much as I would like to.

do you think that if they had plasma guns and gained an extra 12" range would they work better ?

 

The Forge Fiend and Vindicator where the bullet magnets of the army, and I would typically lose one or the other in the course of a game, and at least once I lost the Vindicator because of a foolish move on my part, allowing my side to be exposed to multiple plasma guns.

do you think that runing two long range support units would have been better , because the problem of losing the vindi after going too close to the enemy army would no longer exist.

 

 

who won best general ?

[littlbitz]

Sorry for the delay in getting up more coverage and answering questions. I've lost power, due to the hurricane, and am just throwing this note up from my phone. I'll get back to this as soon as I get some power back.

[Jonah]

Just want to say I really like your list and the explanation behind it. It's made me think of many new ways to use my own units.

 

Backfield land raider & defiler sound interesting - is the LR really necessary? Did you use it as a transport much?

 

Cultists - are they plain apart from the stubbers & shotgun? We're those weapons really worth the points?

 

I'll stop asking questions now and wait for the reports :unsure: well done on the victory & good luck with the storm

[techsoldaten]

Yeah, this has me rethinking a lot of things too. Nothing speaks as loudly as success in a tournament. Congrats!

 

Surprised this list did not kill more, the points system must have been pretty tough for all players.

 

What armies did you face? What was the hardest opponent, and who did you do best against?

[littlbitz]

Alright, power back up, even if portions of town are either washed away, or buried under sand.

 

@Jeske, Hmm... I honestly don't remember who took Best General, I can tell you that Battle Points wise me and my Opponent (the Eldar player) where 3rd and 4th by Battle Points on Table 2 (if I recall correctly). I thought the Space Wolf Player had Best General all wrapped up, but he got best painted. I'll have to get back to you on that one, when I can access the result sheets.

 

In regards to the ten man squad. Originally, my plan was to take two units of ten, one plasma, and one melta. But, the shiney new models, and my desire to go armor heavy changed that.

 

I really think the issue with my original problems was how I was using the unit. I'm afraid if I switch to Plasma, for the sake of range I lose too much punch especially if someone tries to shove a Land Raider in my face (which tends to happen these days), so the Meltas are going to stay.

 

In hind sight, the one change I am going to make to this unit, is I am going to drop the Power Fist from the Champion. It just doesn't come into play enough to warrant the points, no matter how cool he looks with it. So, in the works is a new Champion with just a Combi-MG. I may use the points for an Icon of Vengeance to make the squad Fearless, but not sure yet.

 

Two Havoc Squads vs. the Forge Fiend and Vindicator? no way. Well at least not in my list. I would love to squeeze in a unit of Havocs, but it just doesn't fit.

They were bullet magnets, but they rarely died before they did their job. Aside from that they provide a lot of high strength low AP blasts, that really rip into anything I point the guns at. Horde armies struggle against that much pie, and the strength of the weapons are good against armor.

The down side? of course as you know they have to get within 24", but pushing them forward leaves the Defiler free reign to do as he pleases.

I guess the short answer is that I think my list is working because of having so much armor sqeezed in, and the Havocs I'm afraid may actually dilute the force.

 

@Jonah, I feel the Land Raider was a very important part of my force. out of Five games it allowed me to obtain Line Breaker twice (because of the Cultists that were hitching a ride, and bailed out late game), and actually got my Warpsmith and his crew onto an objective in game three.

In sixth ed. where everyone is kitting plasma, auto-cannons and even missile launchers, the Land Raider is pretty survivable (for now anyways).

 

@techsoldaten, Oh the list killed quite a bit, as you will find as I continue to update this thread, and the way Battle Points were earned.

I faced the following armies

Game 1. Horde Space Wolves (76 marines in a 1500 point list)

Game 2. Mech IG

Game 3. Space Marines (Vanilla type)

Game 4. Chaos Marine (Khorne and Slanesh)

Game 5. Eldar (I hate those guys)

Honestly, all of my games were well fought. I will post details of their lists when I get home tonight and give you the actual missions and some more details (I am at work right now).

[Tamwulf]

Not to be a jerk or anything, but looking at the opponents' army lists, only one looks like a "strong" list- the Mech IG, but no detail was given. Was it mech as in lots of Chimeras, or Lemon Russ tanks?

 

The OP's list I would think would have really, really struggled against the dreaded Necron Air Force list, or a good Blood Angels assault style list. I'd think a vanilla Space Marine list with two Storm Talons would have given him a lot of grief.

 

Still, congrats on the win! The list is the kind of list I like seeing win a lot of games/tournaments. It's more about the skill of the player and how he uses the list then the actual list itself. Its unfortunate to me that he didn't face the current Meta Winners (Cronforce or whatever you want to call the Necron Air Force). I would have liked to have heard how he dealt with it.

 

I'm really surprised that no Dirge Casters were taken. Those seem like auto upgrades to me.

[littlbitz]

I agree Tamwulf, some lists will give me fits, and I well knew this going into the Tournament, I also well knew that flyers could give me problems.

Oh, and in a practice game I did in fact lose to an assaulty Blood Angels with Tau allies (my buddy Jawaballs) the combination of shooty Broadsides and assaulty Marines was too much, of course I did make a couple of errors that game, but no biggie.

The Mechanicon has always been a "Gentlemans" GT, truly a throw back to the old days. No one there takes power gaming lists. In fact to do so, will cause you to be mocked all weekend (just friendly ribbing mind ya).

 

That being said, this is my army for my Tournament season for 2012-2013, so am going for it. I have a few more big events coming up The Colonial, and the St. Valentines Massacre to name 2, and will be bringing my "Armor Saturation" force win or lose.

 

the "Cron-Air" army that everyone is currently fielding is certainly the bane of my army I think. But, I'm not going to tailor my list just to face that one army, one aspect of the game that I enjoy is taking units that people think will not work and making them work.

Rest assured, win or lose, when I face those powerful armies I will post the results up for all to see, as those from the Space Wolf section of these boards can attest.

Oh, and you are certainly right about the Dirge Casters. I am still fiddling with things, and am working my list to 1850, which I think is what my next event point level is at (though not yet confirmed.)

[space wolf]

great post bits. Those are some beautiful termies! :)

[littlbitz]

I have some more pictures to post, but I will probably put them up on my Blog.

 

as I said, Game 1 was vs. a Space Wolf "Horde"

Rune Priest in Termie armor

 

Six Grey Hunter packs, all ten marines each. Five had dual Plasma guns, 1 had dual Melta guns, they were all equiped with Standards.

 

Three Long Fang packs, 5 marines each with 4 Missile Launchers in each.

 

Yes thats 76 bodies in 1500 points with 10 plasma, 2 melta and 12 missile launchers

 

Our mission was based on Crusade with 5 primary objectives each worth 3 points. Slay the Warlord was worth 2, Line Breaker worth 2, and First Blood 1. Vanguard Strike Deployment.

 

Looking at his list, I knew this was going to be an interesting game, as we both felt we had the tools to deal with each others lists. It was to be large scary tanks and Daemon Engines vs. tons of Infantry toting fire power.

 

I won the roll off for first turn, and felt confident that I could put a large dent in his army before he even got a turn, then it happened...

 

Of course he siezed initiative from me and stole the first turn. He shifted and advanced much of his Grey Hunter units, moving onto some objectives, and fortunately for me his Missile Launchers were largely uneffective aside from stripping a couple of hull points due to a combination of unit placement (I always try to keep the possiblity of my opponent siezing initiative when I deploy), Plenty of terrain, and some poor dice on his part.

 

In my turn I began to bombard him with my Defiler, keeping my Warpsmith and his crew safe from harm to keep the beast up and running.

This worked like a charm throughout the game. my opponent spent a ridiculous amount of fire power trying to take the Defiler down, and at one point had stripped it to its final hull point and had immobilized it (Missile Launchers while high strength lack any real punch vs. armor being only AP3) at the end of the game, the Defiler was back up to full strength and was fully mobile, thanks to "It will not die" and the Warpsmith's repairs.

 

I had one unit of Cultists simply take and hold an objective all game, and used the 5 man unit to take another mid-late game. I advanced with the other Cultist unit onto the center objective and harrassed the Grey Hunters taking that objective there.

 

In this particular game, I decided not to deep strike the Terminators, wanting to get the charge on the Grey Hunters and maybe either kill or tie up a unit or two, especially since he lacked any AP2 weaponry in CC. This didn't work very well, I advance with my Land Raider, bailed out, and made the charge into a ten man pack. in Overwatch he shot down two! then in the charge he killed the other 3 without me even killing a singe Grey Hunter! We both had a chuckle at my bad luck. Had that charge worked I would have racked up an additional 3-5 Battle Points that game (it would have allowed me to take another objective, and possibly even gain line breaker, not that it would matter at the end of the weekend :lol: )

 

My Vindicator did pretty well this game, and I believe I lost it to Plasma fire in around turn 5 due to some poor placement on my part and exposing its flank to a Pack of Grey Hunters who took full advantage of my folly.

 

Also, I managed to wreck my own Forge Fiend by stripping my last hull point with an over-heat! again we had a chuckle at my misfortune.

 

Anyway, after the Terminator folly, and him immobilizing my Rhino (which continued to harrass him with Havoc fire all game), my 10 Man Marine Squad mounted up into the Land Raider and took a ride across the board to attempt to get rid of the Grey Hunters and Rune Priest camping his home objective. They managed to shoot the large pack off of the objective (with supporting fire from the Land Raider) but the Rune Priest held his ground and contested that objective.

 

The end result was a blood bath, well over 50 Space Wolves lay dead their force in tatters, but still managing to hold 2 Objectives (and first blood) while my Iron Warriors also held 2 objectives. The 5th was contested and I missed line breaker by less that an inch with my large Chaos Marine squad.

At the end of the game I had lost the Vindicator, the Forge Fiend, my Terminator Squad and about 8 cultists.

 

An exciting game, a few things I would change. 1. I forgot to use my Warpsmith ability to defile some terrain. That could have been huge. 2. In an effort to keep my Vindicator away from the deep threat of the missile launchers, I exposed my flank to Plasma. and 3. In hind sight, my Terminators would have been better served deepstriking behind his lines going for the rear Long Fang pack.

 

lessons learned and some notes on game 2 next...

[Prot]

'Bitz,

 

Did you do the Forgefiend up in a way that lets you swap from ecto to hades? I'm just curious if you would keep it that way if you had the choice? Originally when I read the rules I was pretty convinced I would go all out Ecto x 3. But I started worrying with my life long skill of rolling ones that I would destroy the vehicle too often.

 

I've since only played it with dual Hades and have enjoyed it a lot. What are your thoughts on your configuration?

 

Thanks for updating this. Wolves are always a good fight.

[littlbitz]

No way Prot, I've got about 12 games in so far with that beast, and I have only had that happen that one time.

 

I love the S8 AP2, even if it is short range, I don't think I'll ever look back. Now if I were to paint up a 2nd one, I may try the other configuration.

[Prot]

No way Prot, I've got about 12 games in so far with that beast, and I have only had that happen that one time.

 

I love the S8 AP2, even if it is short range, I don't think I'll ever look back. Now if I were to paint up a 2nd one, I may try the other configuration.

 

Hrm, ok maybe I'll try it again. Perhaps I just have really bad luck.... I've been proxying the model for this specific reason until I make up my mind so thanks for the feedback. I think in your list you said you were using 3 Ecto's? Nice.