Battle Report: 3 Tabled Opponents at an RTT

[Father Mapple]

Hello, battle brothers! I have a good report to give from a local RTT that happened yesterday. I took 3rd place in a pool of 16 or so by tabling all three of my opponents. It was 1200 points, 1.5 hour rounds, normal allies and rules, book missions, and they added up victory points at the end. If I'd had scoring troops, I would have won overall. It was only a 4'x4' table, so not the normal 6'x4', which, to be honest, I think helped me out a lot. All deployments were 12" in for each side, 24" no-man's land in the middle. All missions used Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, and First Blood. Terrain was sparse - 4 pieces in the corners, 1 in the middle that wasn't always line of sight blocking.

 

My list was as follows:

Mephiston

Furioso + Drop Pod + Frag Cannon + Heavy Flamer

8 Death Company + power fist + bolters + Drop Pod

Death Company Dreadnought + talons + meltagun + Drop Pod

Stormraven + Assault Cannon + Multimelta

Stormraven + Assault Cannon + Multimelta

 

I reserved everything each game, deployed Mephiston on his own, and had the dreadnoughts come down turn 1 in every game. All "directions" like forward, back, left, right, etc are from my point of view.

 

So 9 kill points in 16 models. No scoring, and only 9 denial bodies.

 

GAME 1 - My opponent was really friendly, and we laughed loudly a lot during this game. Would play again!

Crusade - 3 objectives across the middle. Forgot to do night fighting (would have helped me out!).

 

My opponent's first list was Eldar.

Farseer + guide + doom + nova + spear + helm

Farseer + forturne + guide + witchfire he never used + spear + helm

20 guardians + 2 lances + warlock with conceal and spear

20 guardians + 2 lances + warlock with conceal and spear

5 Warp Spiders

Wraithknight + 2 Instant Death Cannons

 

I deployed Mephiston first behind some terrain on the right side, then he set up for everything to get a shot on Mephiston but set far back so they couldn't get touched. The two guardian blobs went into the two area terrain in the corners, and the Wraithknight in the middle. The Falcon was in the far right corner. The warp spiders were behind the wraith knight. The center piece of terrain was actually a good LOS blocker, and the plan was to jump Mephiston behind it turn 1, and then not be assaulted since no one could see him. Then the opponent stole the initiative! D'oh!

 

Turn 1

So lots of shooting happened, and many cover saves were rolled, but Mephiston got put down to 1 wound and survived. The Guardians moved slightly forward, the Falcon stayed where it was, and the Wraithknight jumped up to the middle piece of terrain to get shots without cover. 

 

I had the Dreadnoughts come down behind the guardian blobs. The DC Dread used the drop pod as cover and shot the left blob. The Fragioso came down more central, and put all 3 templates on the right blob, doing massive casualties. Mephiston was able to jump to the center and then punched the Wraithknight, just killing it with Preffered Enemy and S10, not even using his Force Weapon! Well, he made his points back!

 

Turn 2

Shooting took one arm off the DC Dread, Warp Spiders jumped to the middle and shot Mephiston to death. The Fragioso took a glance, but nothing serious from the Falcon.

 

One SR came in. 2nd DC Pod came in. DC Squad landed middle left, to help out the Death Company Dread. They shot at the guardians and killed a bunch. SR shot a full load at the Falcon, but didn't do anything due to jink saves being made.  I had the DC Dread charge the blob and they got locked in combat. The Fragioso proceeded to completely demolish the other Guardian squad and the non-Warlord Farseer with templates. S6 AP- when the opponent only has a 4+ invul save is just as good as AP1!

 

Turn 3

Falcon killed the Fragioso. Combat caused a glance ot the DC Dread. DC Dread killed some, but still locked in combat with just the Farseer, Warlock, and like 4 dudes remaining. A few DC Squad died to Warp Spider shots.

 

2nd SRs came on, and the. Both SR shot at the Falcon, with me hovering one of them. Caused a glance or two, but he was rolling jink saves like a BOSS still. DC Dread and Squad kill the remains of the 2nd blob, and consolidate towards the Warp Spiders.

 

Turn 4

Warp Spiders try to shoot at the SR hovered and cause a glance or two. Falcon shoots at the DC Dread and kills it (I think).

 

DC bolter the rest of the Warp Spiders and kills them with help from 1 SR. The other SR fails to kill the Falcon again. It is STILL A BOSS.

 

Turn 5 - I kill the falcon after it misses killing more DC Squad.

 

 

GAME 2 - this guy was super awesome painter, had the most beautiful cultists I'd seen, but hadn't been playing as long as he painted. Very friendly!

Mission was Kill points - he had 8, I had 9 possible. 

 

My 2nd opponent's list was Chaos.

Typhus

9 plague marines + 2 plasmaguns + rhino

10 Chaos Space Marines + khorne mark + lightning claw on champion + bolters + CCWs + Rhino

20 Zombies

Defiler

Hellbrute

 

He deployed across the front of his board, except for the defiler which hung back in the corner. The Plague marines (PM) were on one side of a ruin, slightly separated from the central cultists and CSM in Rhino. I deployed Mephiston in his tiny thing we called a ruin, just at 12" forward on the right side. Then I stole the initiative!

 

Turn 1

Mephiston jumps up to the middle. The Fragioso drops in front of the cultists and Typhus, next to the CSM Rhino, and murders many cultists. The DC Dread drops on the far left next to the PM Rhino, and whiffs with meltagun from 1" away - of course.

 

CSM get out to try and bolter Mephiston. Cultists run away from the Dread, Typhus runs toward Mephiston, and the Hellbrute misses with Multi-Melta on the Fragioso side armor. Plague marines back up in Rhino, and then shoot plasma to get a glance on the DC Dread. Defiler whiffs on the Fragioso with any weapon that can hurt AV12 side armor.

 

Turn 2

Nothing comes in, which is slightly scary. But he doesn't have meltabombs, or much S8 or higher at all, so I think I'll be alright. DC Dread meltas the Rhino back open, then charges the contents. There's 4 or 5 PM after that combat. The Fragioso flames a lot more cultists but misses the charge of like 5". (Having fleet on the DC Dread and Mephiston was super important this day!) Mephiston charges the CSM and murders a bunch, but they stick in.

 

He has few targets to shoot at really, so the Defiler and Hellbrute shoot at the Fragioso and it's drop pod since it's a KP mission, and wipe the drop pod, but immobilize the Fragioso.  Typhus gets a lot closer to Mephiston. Rhino even RAMS the back of the Fragioso which was immobilized just to do something. Even I wanted to see it work, but it didn't. He never charges his Hellbrute since it's I3, and the Furioso is I4, so both being S10 the Furioso would probably wreck him before he could swing. Understandable.

 

Turn 3

One SR comes in and does a hull point to the Defiler. DC Dread wipes the Plague Marines and starts running towards cultists who have been fleeing right every turn. CSM get wiped out and Mephiston moves back a bit to get distance from Typhus. 

 

Hellbrute melts the Furioso into slag. Defiler misses the DC Dread. Typhus charges Mephiston after taking an attack off with a nurgle power. I think he played this right - with Typhus having 2+ versus Mephiston, he's got a good chance to survive and can put the hurt on Mephiston with his S+2 AP2 scythe. But Mephiston gets off S10, Preffered Enemy, and Typhus fails one of the 5 saves he has to make. We even double check to see if there's Eternal Warrior for him, but sadly (for him) it wasn't there. Mephiston consolidates towards the Hellbrute.

 

Turn 4

Other SR comes in, and 1st one hovers, both taking shots at the Defiler, and make it explode. One of them Powers the Machine Spirit to shoot the Assault Cannon at the Rhino and explodes it. DC Pod comes in, and they bolter fire at a lot of cultists, leaving 3. DC Dread keeps running to catch them but can't make the assault. Mephiston punches the Hellbrute to death.

 

He concedes with 4 or so cultists on the table, and my entire army except for the Fragioso still being up to deal with them.

 

 

GAME 3

This game was 5 objectives, 4 of them 12" in from the corners, and one in the center that was worth a random amount of victory points.

 

My 3rd opponent's list was Eldar. He was incredibly friendly and reminded me to make a few rolls I'd forgotten about.

Farseer + guide + prescience + forewarning + helm

Wave Serpent + scatter laser + 10 guardians + lance platform

Wave Serpent + scatter laser + 10 storm guardians + 2 flamers

Wave Serpent + scatter laser + 10 guardians

3 War Walkers + 2 bright lances

2 Nightspinners

 

He won the roll to go first, and I didn't steal the initiative. He deployed the two Night Spinners (NS) on the left a Wave Serpent (WS) central but next to them, War Walkers (WW) in the middle, and the other two WSs on the right. He puts his Farseer behind the WW, and will be disembarking the Bright Lance Guardians so the Farseer can join them. 

 

I put Mephiston in the terrain at 12" forward.

 

Turn 1

Disembarks the guardians and bright lance into terrain for a shot on Mephiston. He moves everything up a bit and then shoots everything but the shields on the Wave Serpents at Mephiston, who has 1 wound left after a lot of cover saves and armor saves. Phew! Farseer had cast spells, but when he moves to join the disembarked guardians, the difficult terrain movement and even the fleet run weren't enough to get him into coherency before the end of the turn. So the Farseer is behind the WS, 1 inch away from the Guardian blob, and on his own.

 

Fragioso Drops behind the Farseer, Wave Serpent, and 10 Guardians. DC Dread drops on far right, in terrain, next to a WS. Fragioso doubles out the Farseer with the Frag Cannon, and with some clever positioning, manages to wipe out the Guardian squad behind the Farseer and put a glance on the rear of the WS. First Blood and Warlord! (This game shows how even with BS4 from this point on, Guide and Prescience makes a huge difference in a shooting army. the lack of it really affected him the rest of the game as far as results from shooting were concerned). DC Dread explodes the WS near him. Mephiston jumps up, and with S10, pops open the other right side WS.

 

Turn 2

Mephiston dies to Bright Lance WW, who keep moving to center. Furioso loses his flamer arm, but keeps the Frag Cannon and has 2 glances. Plain Guardian squad tries to run towards my table edge, and the Storm Guardians run towards the middle terrain.

 

Everything comes on. Yay! 2 SRs come on and shoot at WW but he makes more than 10 5+ invul saves! A PotMS shoots at one NIght Spinner rear armor, immobilizing the Night Spinner. DC Squad come down in the middle of the table, slightly closer to me, and shoot at the plain guardians, killing all but 3 or 4 since they're in the open. DC Dread makes an epic 9 inch charge through difficult terrain, and then proceeds to hit with all attacks, wounds with all hits, and then does it again, wiping out the Storm Guardians. He consolidates towards the Plain Guardians.

 

Turn 3

Furioso glanced again, but still up. DC Dread takes some shooting in the side, but is glanced a couple of times. DC Squad absorb some fire but nothing serious due to cover or FNP. He keeps retreating his stuff into my left corner to get Linebreaker with the remaining WS.

 

DC Squad starts moving towards the WW since they have a fist, and fire bolters ineffectively. Both Stormravens hover this time, demolish the healthy Night Spinner and take the WW down to 2. Fragioso is able to assault and demolish the immobilized Night Spinner. Death Company makes the short charge and wipes out the remaining troops on the board.

 

Turn 4

Shooting. Fragioso dies. His remaining Wave Serpent and War Walkers flee into my left corner. They are able to take down a hovering Stormraven. 

 

The Raven destroys the Night Spinner, still hovering, and PotMS into the WW, killing 1. The rest of my stuff plinks off the last War Walker.

 

Turn 5

Lances miss the Raven.

 

I destroy the WW, and get the table. 

 

Through the whole game, I only shot at front armor on any AV12 chassis like 2 times. Made his shields useless, so he kept shooting them, which was smart, but just the best choice he had in a bad situation.

 

 

After Tournament Report Thoughts:

 

I never flew the Stormravens more than the turn they came in. In smaller points games like this, there's usually not enough on the board to threaten them enough to need the snap-fire protection. Seriously, I only zoomed them in on turn 1, then hovered every other turn the entire day.

 

Dreadnoughts, especially AV13 ones, are hard to deal with for Xeno armies. S6 shooting? Hahaha, it tickles! Oh, even your elite troops only have 4+ armor? That's nice you have lots of wargear and psyker powers to give you cover. Death Company dreads and our proud Furiosos care not for what passes as protection amongst your misbegotten kind!

 

Drop Pods are so good at making board control. They don't shoot much, and are good for pecking away at 5+ armor xeno or cultists, but they do jam up the board. I kept using my own Drop Pods for cover many times, and except for the Kill Points mission, no one ever shot at them. They don't deny objectives or work for Linebreaker, but they do make good lane blockers. Even if all it does is push their vehicles to keep making immobilization rolls by going around the pod into terrain, that's worth the 35 points some times. And I made it so that enemy units couldn't flee very effectively from the Dreads by placing the pods and such in their escape path. Love me some Pods! Now I need to paint up a DC Dread Pod, and a 2nd regular colored infantry pod.

 

Killing all the troops is a really good tactic for me. I can get Linebreaker and Slay the Warlord many times (unless it's a Draigo, Calgar, Lysander, Abaddon type of bully), and many times even First Blood due to the Fragioso if the right targets are available.

 

The trick of deploying ONLY Mephiston wouldn't work at 1500 points - there would be too much shooting and he would die. I wouldn't be tabled since it wouldn't be my turn yet, but it means there wouldn't be enough targets. 

 

It's a long post, so I hope you guys enjoyed reading it! Let me know if you see anything I could have done better or if you have any questions.

[Kanis]

Wow congrats on doing really well and having a really hard hitting force there, I was surprised at first to see your only troops were DC units, but you were going for tabling not scoring so that works totally for you!

 

I did want to mention/ask however, I thought in 6th edition we're no longer allowed to reserve more than half of our forces? Maybe I'd misread the wording of it and such but it's believed to have helped help the DOA lists in part, but in either case awesome games and great work keeping fear of the Angels alive. :)

[t4play]

Cool . . good write up enjoyed it and well done

[t4play]

Wow congrats on doing really well and having a really hard hitting force there, I was surprised at first to see your only troops were DC units, but you were going for tabling not scoring so that works totally for you!

I did want to mention/ask however, I thought in 6th edition we're no longer allowed to reserve more than half of our forces? Maybe I'd misread the wording of it and such but it's believed to have helped help the DOA lists in part, but in either case awesome games and great work keeping fear of the Angels alive.

have to say I thought this as well . . . then realised that pods 50% have to arrive 1st turn, storm ravens dont count mephiston is the only unit that can be set up . . . I Think?

[Xenith]

Models in dedicated transports that start in reserve do not count. Models that have to start in reserve do not count.

 

Mephiston is the only one that these rules do not apply to, and as such must be deployed, while everything else waits in reserve.

[t4play]

Models in dedicated transports that start in reserve do not count. Models that have to start in reserve do not count.

 

Mephiston is the only one that these rules do not apply to, and as such must be deployed, while everything else waits in reserve.

hooray I was right  for a change

[weycon]

Nice reports, and thank you for using DC and DC dread..

 

 

 

 

Question:

Last report.

 

Turn 2 the fruioso suffers 1 pen and 2 glances = 3 lost hull points.

 

Turn 3 furioso suffers 1 glance = 1 lost hull point.

 

Turn 4 furioso dies to shooting.

 

Dreads only have 3 hull points, so it should have been wrecked in turn 2.

[Ushtarador]

Nice report and well done brother! Pretty stupid of your opponent in game 1 to let the wraithknight get charged by Mephi 2 Ravens is very nasty, and on small tables this army becomes evenmore broken on this small number of points

Just a quick question "So the Farseer is behind the WS, 1 inch away from the Guardian blob, and on his own." Being 1'' away would actually be enough to join the squad, as you just have to move into coherency on the other hand, you can only join units in the movement phase, running doesn't help.

[Father Mapple]

@weycon I didn't take notes and this was all from memory, so if I got the turns wrong on the Furioso dying, sorry. It didn't die until the end of turn 3, at least.

 

@ushtarador He didn't get within 2" on the movement phase, but did on the run phase. He even pointed it out himself that the Farseer wasn't part of the unit, but was hoping to get "in" the unit for some kind of protection at least. Didn't work though!

 

And the reserves thing is sort of nasty trick, but since they were all dedicated transports and reserved, and the stormravens were flyers, they all got to ride reserves until turn 2 at least. I had a theme for the army, of "invasion force" and drop pods with stormravens seemed to fit the theme. Mephiston being able to fly with his mind powers, and being the Lord of Death, he probably just jumped out of the battle barge and said not to waste the drop pod.

 

Thanks for the feedback! It was a fun way to get $20 credit to a store.

[Kanis]

Models in dedicated transports that start in reserve do not count. Models that have to start in reserve do not count.

 

Mephiston is the only one that these rules do not apply to, and as such must be deployed, while everything else waits in reserve.

Oh wow my mistake, I hadn't realized it worked that way for transports and occupants now, my mistake everyone sorry. ^ ^;; In the case apologies, wasn't trying to be a pain or discredit! I'm quite inspired by this list and reports now then knowing these corrections, thanks.

 

Also means a friend of mine is going to be /quite/ displeased hearing this as well, muwahaha!

[Xenith]

^^ No worries, any question is a valid question, especially if it clears up sections of the rules that are a bit trickier to get the head around.

[t4play]

Would this reserves rule still work if I was to have 1squad was in a land raider instead of a pod? Or would that have to start on the board?

[The Milkman Of Baal]

Not really because the pod HAS to start in reserve and the raider doesn't, though if you had another unit (ie Majic Meph) and deploy it then you can keep the raider+unit in reserve as you can keep upto half your deployable force in reserve and you only have 2 deployable units (Meph and raider+squad) due to everything else having to start in reserve. I belive thats how you can play it...