NOVA Open Game 1

[Smurfalypse]

(Realized there is a battle report section and placed my report here, I apologize for the mix up)

This was my first game at a NOVA Open ever and I got paired up against Allan Hernandez and his Eldar + Tau. This is a game where my rolls did not fail me at any point and everything sorta steamrolled against him fairly quickly

Round 1 – Purge the Alien

This is a CUMULATIVE MISSION. Victory is achieved by accumulating Mission Points. If victory is

not achieved through Mission Points, it is determined by Tiebreaker.

Deployment

Dawn of War (Rulebook, Page 119)

Mission Special Rules

Night Fighting, Reserves

Mission Points

1 Mission Point is earned for each enemy unit destroyed.

1 Mission Point is earned for completing each Secondary Objective described in the Rulebook: First

Blood, Linebreaker, and Slay the Warlord. (Rulebook, Page 122)

You MUST score at least Three (3) more Mission Points than your Opponent to win via Mission Points

Tiebreaker

Points Destroyed

One or both of the following if relevant (for an additional 50-100 points toward Tiebreaker):

50 Bonus Points for tying, but scoring One (1) more Mission Point than your Opponent

50 Additional Bonus Points for tying, but scoring Two (2) more Mission Points than your Opponent

Daemons + Word Bearers

Sorcerer

ML3, Terminator Armor, Spell Familiar, Brand

Herald of Tzeentch

ML3, Exaulted (Grimoire), Locus of Conjuration

Herald of Tzeentch

ML3

Herald of Khorne

Lesser (Axe of Khorne), Locus of Wrath, Juggernaught

Horrors x20

Plaguebearers x10

Plaguebearers x10

Cultists x10

Screamers x9

Flesh Hounds x16

Heldrake x1

Obliterators x3

Mark of Nurgle

Eldar + Tau

Farseer

Singing Spear, Jetbike

Farseer

Singing Spear, Jetbike

Tau Commander

Purtide Chip, Multi-Spectrum, Irisium Battlesuit, Vectored Thrusters, x2 Missile Pods

Jetbikes x3

Shuriken Cannon

Jetbikes x3

Shuriken Cannon

Fire Warriors x12

Shas'ui

Fire Warriors x11

Shas'ui

Riptide x1

Ion Accelerator, Smart Missile System, Early Warning Override, Velocity Tracker

Warp Spiders x8

Warp Spiders x7

Warp Spider Exarch x1

Dark Reapers x5

Starshot Missiles

Dark Reaper Exarch x1

Eldar Missile Launcher, Fast Shot

War Walkers x3

Scatter Lasers, Bright Lances

Broadsides x3

High Yield Missile Pods, Smart Missile System, Early Warning Override

Now, I did not take pictures or notes on the games, I am running off of memory so things may be a slightly out of order but the gist of how things went down is there.

Warlord powers - Forwarning, Prescience, Flickering Fire of TZ. Trait was his unit has hatred. . .

Herald of TZ powers - Perfect Timing, Prescience, Flickering Fire of TZ

Word Bearer Sorcerer powers - Hemorrage (every game), Enfeeble, Warpspeed

He won the roll to choose first or second turn and deferred the turn to me, so I setup and prepared myself to get shot to pieces.

Doggies deployed center mass on the table as I did not know where he was going to set up and wanted to be able to ensure a second turn charge if they lived through his turn, the Herald of Khorne joined them. My Screamers setup to the left of the doggies behind a large hill and were able to block line of site to most of his deployment zone, so they were in a great spot. The Horrors lined up to the right of my doggies and the two Heralds of TZ joined them. My Oblits setup between the Doggies and Horrors and slightly behind them to help buff and support my back line if he decided to use all of his Warp Spiders as deep striking tools. I kept my Plaguebeares in reserve to deepstrike, the Cultists in reserve to walk on later, the Heldrake because he is a flyer.

His deployment was a complete surprise to me, I had assumed that he would deploy away from my Horrors as they had an average of 8d6 shots a turn (including Heralds) that were twin-linked and ignore cover. There was a theme all tourney of people disrespecting the Horror blob He instead castled up in his corner on the same side of the Horrors and furthest away from the Screamers. He had his fire warriors bubble wrapping all of his units and held nothing in reserve, the Riptide was holding down the flank on my left that the Screamers were deployed on (though still only a few inches from the rest of the army, he was castled up good and tight).

My Turn 1 (finally)

Before I moved I scout moved my doggies + Herald of Khorne straight at him behind the ruins in the middle of the board, the idea is that if I pass the Grimoire I would just throw them as close to his battle line and as spread out as possible so that he would be forced to shoot them knowing that I would charge as much stuff as possible on my turn 2, if I failed the Grimoire I would hide in the ruins and gain a 4+ cover vs some of his stuff as he did not have any marker lights in the army.

I started my turn with doing my powers and cast prescience the Obliterators and Forwarning on the Doggies and I left it at that since the Horrors were going to be an inch out of range no matter what I did. I promptly moved to my movement phase and moved the Screamers 12" over the hill toward his deployment zone, the Horrors moved up 6", the Obliterators moved up 6" behind next to them. I then did the Grimorie on the Doggies and passed (yay 2++), with this knowledge that it would be nearly impossible for him to destroy the entire unit with that kind of save I moved them 12" in a wide wide line in front of his army, I wanted to threaten as much as I could with them. My move was complete at this point and I moved on to shooting phase.

I rolled on my handy dandy Warp Storm chart and got nothing of significance so we moved on after wasting 30 seconds of our lives with it. The next thing I did was to run the Doggies and spread out a bit more and moved about 4" away from his entire castled front line, the Horrors ran up a bit as well and finally the Screamers Turbo Boosted into his deployment zone about 18" from the left board edge (enough to threaten the flank, but I knew he had to shoot Doggies). My Obliterators with Prescience decided it was a good time to fire and launched x3 lascannons shots at some Jetbikers he had hanging out (wanted to save the plasma cannons for my next turn as I would be in range to the Broadsides), I hit with all three, wounded with all three and he made two of his cover saves. . . So I killed a single guy on my turn He took his leadership, promptly failed it and ran off the board (some bad mojo there, but that is why I never park myself directly on board edge when I go second).

His Turn 1

He buckled his chin strap and set in to make me pay for being so bold I think. Prescience/Guide on ALL the things (he had both on BOTH Farseers) and the Commander could obviously join another unit to make it twin-linked as well if need be. Warp Spiders both got Guide and the Fire Warriors got some Guide action, frown town for me. He moved his stuff around a bit and positioned his troops better to bubble wrap the Broadsides/Warpspiders, other than that it was a quick move phase.

He started his shooting phase as one would expect, shooting Doggies. Fire Warriors went to town and managed to bring down a few Doggies but not nearly the amount of damage he was hoping for. The Warp Spiders were on deck and opened up with their str 6, twin-linked meanness on the Doggies but my 2++ held up and I only lost a few more from them. I think at this point he realized something needed to happen quick and used the Riptides str8 large blast to hit them as well and I failed a three saves and lost three outright to Instant Death, the Broadsides joined in the fun next and inflicted minor damage, the Biker squad that was left used what they had and attempted to whittle them down as well with little effect. All in all he killed a total of 5 Doggies and I was left with 11 + Herald of Khorne.

He moved to assault phase and re positioned some of his Tau/Eldar freebee move stuffz to block me as best he could from hitting everything in assault on my turn.

My Turn 2

My turn started with Reserves and the only things that came on were the Plaguebearers which I deep striked at the complete opposite end of the table from where he was castled at. They were only free kill points for him if he got near them

I cast some powers. Prescience on Horrors, Prescience on Obliterators, Forwarning on Horrors (Doggies out of range), Perfect Timing.

Started my move and first thing I did after powers was attempt to Grimoire the Doggies and again it was successful, so for the overwatch and opposing turn I would have a 3++, considering he was able to inflict 11 or so wounds to them when they had a 2++ I did not think a 3++ would allow me to survive the turn if I did not make it into CC with at least four of his units (assuming I won combat and I would get stuck out in the open after I ran down whatever was left). With that in mind, I moved my Horrors and Obliterators to be able to better shoot some of the bubble wrapping Fire Warriors out of the way so that I could get to Broadsides and Warp Spiders. The Doggies moved an inch away from his front line and were spread out 2" from each other with the Herald safely behind them. Screamers moved 12" along his board edge toward the left side of his line (his right side). The Riptide was there but I was really unsure if I wanted to assault it with them or not as x9 str 5 hits vs T6 was a good trade for me or not, though tieing it up in CC was in my mind as it would keep that auto killing doggie gun out of my hair for a turn, I figured if I blew up enough stuff with my shooting and opened up a space to safely turboboost through and over I would rather inflict damage to Warp Spiders as their damage output with guide is super deadly.

Shooting phase began with a roll on the Warp Storm chart and I rolled up one of the random blow up stuff things again and we wasted 30 second of our lives as nothing of note happened. . .

The Horrors then started things off, they attempted to shoot everything they had at the 12 man squad of Fire Warriors and he actually made x2 Deny the Witch rolls (6s baby), the bright side is that it was the unit that made it through and they had 4D6 shots and managed to completely kill the squad due to no cover and rerolls from Prescience (I think Warp Flame actually killed one at the end, but the end result would have been the same as it opened things up for me). The Obliterators decided that the Broadsides would have to wait and used the Plasma Cannons on the other Fire Warrior squad and managed to kill a fair amount (though cover helped), one scattered off a distance, even with the reroll and hit a pile of random stuff doing a few wounds to things. The Screamers had some room to turbo boost over a unit of Warp Spiders and manged to knock out about half the squad. This ended my shooting phase and I moved on to the assault phase.

Doggies had room to charge 3 difference units (Fire Warriors, Bikers and the untouched Warp Spider squad), declaring that the Warp Spiders were the primary. As predicted I ate a massive amount of overwatch and actually took a few wounds, though because they were each from different angles the wounds were spread out. Doggies made it in with all three. There were no characters so no challenges were done and basically what happened was I went last (two Doggies went through some terrain and dropped my I down to 1) and he attacked and inflicted a wound or two on the unit as his Tau needed 5s to hit and 5s to wound and the Warp Spiders needed 5s to wound, then my 3++ saved the few that got through. I took my attacks and the Herald killed 4 Fire Warriors and doggies killed 4 more various models as they were spread out over three units (Loci of Hatred is the bees knees, especially when you lose the extra attack due to defensive grenades or multi assaults). I won combat by 6 or 7 and he failed his leadership with all three units and I ran them all down with my Init 6 (yay Herald of Khorne). I consolidated and surrounded the Herald of Khorne with Doggies as I knew the Tau/Eldar were pissed and would try to finish them off.

His Turn 2

He started his turn with the psychic stuff and gave the Broadside Guide and his last unit of Jet Bikers + x2 Farseers prescience.

He took his Jet Bikes and jumped over the Dogs toward my Horrors, everything else huddled up in some terrain and pointed their guns at Dogs. He then went to shooting phase.

Jet Bikers moved and shot some Horrors killed two or three (4++ reroll 1s), everything else shot at Doggies. I failed a few saves and lost a few more and was down to about 4 + Herald.

He moved to assault phase and moved around a bit.

My Turn 3

Reserves all came on. I used my powers again to start. Prescience on Horrors, Perfect Timing and Forwarning. Prescience on Obliterators and then I Enfeebled the Bikers (he passed his Deny save).

Horrors moved 6" away from Bikers toward his deployment zone, Obliterators + Sorcerer moved toward the Bikers + x2 Farseers and the Doggies moved in front of his remaining units in the corner and waited for the assault phase. The Plagubearers moved into hiding away from his army and the ones that just came on from reserve deep striked near the other unit away from all the action, the Cultists moved on my furthest left corner (the complete opposite of where my opponent was, as this was a kill point mission), the Heldrake moved on over top of the Bikers + x2 Farseer unit that was now in my deployment zone and killed a few with a Vector Strike leaving just the two Farseers alone. I used the Grimoire on the Doggies again and succeeded again (this is a rarity and I would pay for my luck the rest of the games I played ).

Warp Storm table popped up nothing of note and was mostly a waste of time again.

The Heldrake flamed the unit and did no damage to them

Obliterators then lobbed three lascannon shots in and killed one with an ID hit.

Horrors unloaded everything and finished off the last Farseer.

At this point my opponent said we could call it giving me the victory and max points for the match.

All in all my army matches up very very well vs these types of lists as it is mostly what I play against locally (or some variation with Tau as primary and Eldar secondary), so when he deployed the way he did I knew exactly what to expect and how to respond. I also had a fair amount of luck getting my Grimoire off three turns in a row (rarity for me ). As I read on B&C once "He who lives by the Grimoire, crys by the Grimoire!".

[minigun762]

Surprised by your success with the Horrors, I can't get over the fact that they have a decent chance of actually helping their target with FnP so I tend to dismiss them outright.