Tourney BA batreps, trying out a few things.

[knife&fork]

Last weekend I attended a tournament with 80 people as the only BA player, thought I'd post my experiences and the things I picked up along the way.

 

It had quite a few restrictions; no supplements, no minicodexes, no data slates, 'battle brothers' downgraded to 'allies of convenience', some units hard capped at 2 or 3 total, no fortifications and few more specific like not allowing screamer stars and seer council + wave serpent spam. 

A bit heavy handed for my taste. 

Didn't shake things up too much at the top except making Necrons and White scars more popular.

 

This tournament requires TT standard and also adds your painting softscore to the battle points, limiting my selection of what to bring since I'm a really lazy painter owning tons of stuff not really at TT standard :P 

 

With that in mind I decided to have some fun and bring a number of things I rarely use or think will get nerfed or disappear in our new codex:

 

Mephiston (rulebook powers)

2*Frag dreads in pod with melta and searchlight.

5 assault marines with flamer in TLHB razorback with stormbolter and searchlight

5 assault marines with melta in TLHF razorback with stormbolter and dozerblade

8 DC with fist, axe, infernus pistol, mix of bolters and BP+ chainsword

Dedicated landraider redeemer for the DC with pintle MM

DC talon dread with flamer, melta, grapple and pod

2*AC-LC predators 

Stormraven with TLMM, TLAC

Coms relay

 

A bit of a Mort' inspired list! ;)

 

The general plan here was to start very little on the table and use the coms relay to bring everything in on turn 2. In the case of night fight I'd use the searchlight on the frag dreads and TLHB razorback to light up targets for my predators and have them demech or shave wounds off of MCs. 

Mephiston rides in the raven and rolls primarily on biomancy. 

The landraider with the DC will deep strike if the terrain allows it, because that's the cool thing to do!

 

Not really a competitive build for this tournament as I was heavy on KPs yet low on scoring and the missions had emphasis on both of those. But with the Swiss matchmaking I still expected to play mostly fun games and hopefully give people a hard time with lots of 'in your face' units.   

 

Next up, the battles!

[CaptainHelion]

The landraider with the DC will deep strike if the terrain allows it, because that's the cool thing to do!

 

 

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

[knife&fork]

Unfortunately all my games dragged on until the last minute, didn't have much time for pictures.

 

First up, chaos space marines!

 

Now this was a fun list:

 

Khârn the betrayer and daemon prince with wings and mace for HQS

19 berzers in rhinos and 20 cultists for troops

some havocs, some chosen

2 squads of obliterators 

one heldrake and a smattering of spawns

 

Not exactly a bog standard CSM list, but not too terrible either

 

The mission was table quarters with 5 centrally placed objectives, scoring and extra VPs for fast attack. Night fight.

 

http://i.imgur.com/2gfzUGe.jpg?1

 

My plan for using the searchlights to mitigate night fight works just as intended. However, I get a somewhat lackluster start failing to kill any of the rhinos and no wounds inflicted on the obliterators. This trend continues the whole game as his lucky obliterators wreak havoc on my dreads as well as killing off the raven and blowing up the landraider. The DC gets to kill off a squad of berzerkers but are a little too good at it and end up as BBQ when the heldrake shows up after the combat. 

 

This however is partially offset by how unlucky his daemon prince is. He first takes a wound from the storm raven, then another from the grounding test, then he jumps off into terrain and takes a wound from the terrain test even with the tzeentch armor reroll! The final wounds is lost when he charges my assault squad and manages to roll a 1 for his daemon weapon and failing his invul. :P

Poor guy didn't get to do a thing, much like my DC dread who got exploded 3 times over by Khârn. 

 

Mephiston kills himself after rolling 3 perils in two turns, all of them double 6 of course. Effectively reversing the game from a win to a loss in the final turn due to secondary VPs. 

 

Fun and even game!

It's always a party when Khârn shows up. 

[knife&fork]

Second battle was against nids, flying monster spam.

2 winged hive tyrant
1 hive crone, 1 harpy
a shrike brood
30 gaunts
30 hormas
1 tyrranofex
1 tervigon
1 mawlock
3 zoantropes
2 or 3 biovores, don't quite remember

Another fun list! I'm not that good at dealing with monsters, but with this many flying I actually had a better chance since I was likely to cause quite a few grounding test wounds over the course of the game. I also rolled endurance and iron arm on Mephiston (who ended this one with full wounds) so I wasn't worried at all about going monster hunting.

Unfortunately I made two mistakes that ultimately cost me the game.
The first was a sloppy deployment of my predators. They ended up too far towards his line and he glanced them both to death on turn 1. Really needed those extra high S shots to score some wounds.
The second came in turn 5 when Mephiston charged the tyrannofex instead of the tervigon, forgetting that they have 2+. I got stuck turn 5 and 6 trying to get a wound past that save and didn't get to kill off the tervigon (one measly wound remaining!) which meant he held a center objective and won the secondary (KPs) as we didn't get a 7th turn.

My drop pods were the stars of the match, using them to force grounding test was really helpful as it let my good units concentrate on killing bugs. DC dread got blown up by zoantrope lances and had no chance to blend

Oh well, on to the next one!

[knife&fork]

The last match of the day was a bit of a downer. Since I had lost two games in a row I thought I was going to catch a break thanks to the matchmaking system. That was not to be!

I managed to get a very powerful list (for this tourney meta) who had some bad luck early on and thus was far lower in the ranking than one would expect.

This is what he had:

1 necron lord with MSS and scythe in a barge

1 necron lord with MSS and scythe

3 storm crypteks with haywire staffs

4*5 man warrior squads in night scythes

3 annihilation barges

Ork warboss in mega armor

unit of mega nobs

unit of shoota boys

2 battlewagons with deffrollas

Comms array

Yeah.... Considering that I'm vehicle heavy and just about every one of his units except the shoota boys will glance anything not AV14 to death in a single round of shooting I didn't have much hope going into this match. I estimated he would wipe me on turn 3 or 4 depending on how we rolled reserves.

Damned if I wasn't going to try though!

I actually managed to give him a bloody nose early on!

After turn one he had not only lost the two battlewagons but also the catacomb command barge and two of the annihilation barges! I was actually a victim of my own success as the DC didn't have anything left to charge and got caught in the open turn 2.

http://i.imgur.com/fosfpSz.jpg?1

Thanks to the strong start I didn't get wiped like I had feared! When the game ended Mephiston was still alive (with full wounds to boot!) after slaughtering one of the necron lords, the warboss, the boys and a group of Necron warrios. Not enough to stay off a total defeat in VPs but definitely a moral victory :P

Really nice opponent in this game as well!

Starting day 2 I was now in the bottom 10 which kinda sucked.

[knife&fork]

So the second day comes around and it turns out that I've been matched with one of the players from my own club. This guy is a veteran gamer, but with little experience of 6th. I felt kinda bad since I knew it wasn't going to be a very even game. Probably about as one sided, if not more, as my last game day 1 against the necrons.

He was running something like this:

Platoon command

Ogryn body guards

Primaris psyker manning an Icarus

3*10 man guard units (with a commisar I think?)

1 heavy weapon team

3 special weapon/veteran teams with demo doctrine in 2 chimeras and one vendetta

2 russes

1 manticore

3 ratling snipers

Marbo

1 sentinel (forgot which type or gun)

Mission was multiple objectives with HS as bonus VP and scoring.

The only stuff that really worried me here was him getting lucky with the Icarus or the vendetta. Or maybe a nicely timed demo charge from Marbo. Things didn't really go his way with the reserve rolls however so I spent the last turns hunting down individual units, eventually wiping him on turn 6 for a complete victory.

He made a few critical mistakes in the deployment which further hurt him and helped offset a lot of my bad dice early in the game.

The first mistake was blobbing the guardsmen. Not a bad move normally but very bad when facing BA. A combined charge from the DC and Mephiston killed 27 models and sent the remaining few running.

http://i.imgur.com/WRFxnqA.jpg

He also left a drop pod sized hole right in the middle of his deployment zone... the kind of mistake you only do once. All my regular opponents are well aware of much space I'll need to touch down and deploy

Overall though it was a fun and relaxed game with some great cinematic moments like this:

http://i.imgur.com/S94OwPz.jpg

His Vendetta comes in from reserves, placing it behind the Raven and blasting away! I evade and manage to save one pen but get glanced! On the following turn I hover since I'll be firing snapshots anyway and I can't turn around quickly enough to get my guns on him in flyer mode.

I unleash everything, manages a rend and send him crashing down with the burning wreck coming to a rest just a few inches in front of my raven!

This game gives a late but much needed points boost. Time for the final game!

[knife&fork]

On my final game I faced a Grey Knight player. He knew about the huge number of daemon lists and thus he had themed his GKs for that purpose. Unfortunately for him he didn't face a single Daemon the whole tourney.

He list went something like:

Coteaz (warlord)

2* smallish plasma henchmen units in chimeras, maybe some servitors, don't remember exactly

1*throw away scoring unit riding a storm raven

2 strike squads

1 interceptor squad with double flamers

3* dreadknights with doomfists, torrent flamers, psilencer gatlings and personal teleporters

Mission was KPs with most troops remaining, slay the warlord and a central objective as secondaries. Table quarters deployment.

"Oh noes!" I hear some people say. "Coteaz and wrapquake, it's an autoloss when you depend so much on the pods!"

Now I've been up against coteaz list (with or without warpquake) numerous times and I've only lost once. Premeasure the 'I've been expecting you' and 'warp quake' zones, I like to mark them with dice. Take advantage of any spreading out for coverage and jump on the first failed psychic test or perils.

The last time I faced GK Mephiston had to spend the entire game hiding, taking pot shots with his plasma pistol.

Now with Biomancy and the Raven I can throw him into the action without fear, instead of playing with a 250 p handicap.

I roll 'iron arm', 'Endurance' and 'Haemorrage'. Monster combo!

The only thing I need to do is keep him away from the dreadknights and preferably the flyer with those nasty mindstrike missiles...

Speaking of the dreadknights, those were pretty much the only things that worried me. If I could deal with them in a timely manner the rest would be a mopping up operation.

We set up and I carefully measure the range for his shunt moves. I try to bait him into my deployment zone (into range of my reserved DC...) by giving a target for the flamers but no chance to use the psi gatlings. Keeping the predators alive is the key to winning this battle as they along with the raven are the best ways of putting wounds on the dreadknights.

Unfortunately he doesn't take the bait, so I deploy my frag cannon dreads aggressively and open up with everything I've got on one DK at the time. He gets really lucky with his 5+ cover and invuls early game, so despite everything he has all three of them alive at the end of turn one.

Turn two however he's now stuck with the 'can't ignore' furiosos in his deployment zone. They predictably die but also manage a few wounds on the DKs before going down. All this buys me an extra round of moving away into the corner while shooting with my preds. Together with the raven showing up I kill all but one DK who's down to 1 wound.

One turn three he seems to be well aware that things aren't going his way. Conserving the easy KPs while trying for the secondaries is now the plan rather than offensively playing for a win. He makes a push with his final DK and his interceptor squad, using up the shunt move. My DC deal with the DK but get roasted and worn down in combat by the interceptor squad.

In the last turns we have Mephiston mopping up his troops.

The DC dread blowing up a chimera before getting blown up by plasma henchmen.

His raven blowing up mine but getting shot down by the redeemer.

The landraider finishes the interceptor squad and also roasts Coteaz plus body guard after he kills most of my assault marines trying to reach the central objective. He tries to hide the throwaway unit out of LoS, far off in a corner, but my TLHF makes good use of it's lucifer engines and burns them to a crisp before the game end.

In the end he managed to have more troops alive than me, with one strike squad member and a single henchman still on the table. However I still score a solid victory with a near wipe. Mephiston ends the game with full wounds once more.

Super friendly opponent in this game too. I don't think I've ever had such luck on a tourney!

-----------

Ending the tourney with two strong wins I climb the rankings and end up just inside the upper half. Actually a few places higher than I had expected with a poorly optimized list and weak softscore for painting.

After the price ceremony I had a nice chat with two of the top players who gave me some good advice on painting and some less helpful advice on how to build BA lists.... If you point at a frag dread and ask "What's that?" you quite obviously haven't played BA since 5th.

I'll add a final post in the days to come with individual unit evaluations.

[CaptainHelion]

Sounds like quite the exciting set of games! Congrats on doing as well as you did. It made for good reading.

[knife&fork]

Sounds like quite the exciting set of games! Congrats on doing as well as you did. It made for good reading.

Glad you enjoyed it!

OK, evaluation time! let's have a look at what I've learned from these games. I'm going to do this on a unit per unit basis.

Mephiston (rulebook powers)

What can I say about this guy that I haven't already? This tourney forced us to pick either codex or BRB powers for all games, but I can't think of one where I missed the codex powers. The last tourney I brought Mephiston to he died in 3 out of 5 matches and both of the times he survived it was because he spent the entire game hiding. In this one he only died once and ended all but one game with full wounds, despite always getting into combat as much as possible.

I think BA can handle vehicles quite well already, with rbrb powers (biomancy in particular) I can go after MCs with no worries, otherwise one of the problem units for BA.

2*Frag dreads in pod with melta and searchlight.

These are a staple unit. Such good all rounders. Didn't have points for the magna grapples this time and I really missed those extra S8 AP2 shots.

5 assault marines with flamer in TLHB razorback with stormbolter and searchlight

Not much to say about these guys. Standard smallish scoring unit. I'll get to a more detailed look at how I used the searchlight later. it deserves a special mention.

5 assault marines with melta in TLHF razorback with stormbolter and dozerblade

The fast TLHF catch people by surprise. Any unit not MEQ can't afford to ignore that flamer. So while it's a humble transport it can still contribute to threat saturation. Very useful unit when you want to drive in from reserves or double team a transport. A bit on the expensive side but I wan't to run 2 when I build more TLHF turrets.

8 DC with fist, axe, infernus pistol, mix of bolters and BP+ chainsword

These guys perform! But we already know that don't we? Didn't get much use out of that infernus pistol, might consider swapping it for a power sword or going double fists with no axe when they don't ride in a pod.

Dedicated landraider redeemer for the DC with pintle MM

Thanks to the land raider my DC got to assault every game. Not sure however if that's worth the 250 pts? Only survived one match, IG. Really only pulled it's weight during the GK game.

I used deep strike to deploy in 3 out of 5 game. Two of those I was 1" away from a mishap and in one I was misplaced. Still fun because of the "you can do that?" reactions

DC talon dread with flamer, melta, grapple and pod

This guy was the disappointment of the tournament. The only time he got to use his claws was when he held my name tag for the painting evaluation.

With just one he really need to ride in a raven. A second raven preferably.

2*AC-LC predators

I love these guys. Against certain matchups (like Taudar) they are terrible and will likely be blown off the board turn one. Double dev squad behind an aegis (maybe with a priest) are better in those cases but on the whole the speed and firepower is a very nice combo. Rarely will there be a turn where you are unable to use all guns.

Stormraven with TLMM, TLAC

Nothing wrong with these (except the model itself). Makes Mephiston useful again, great anti flyer and flying MCs. Never save those blood strike missiles. I don't care if you are shooting a guardsman or a landraider.

The raven makes me wish I had 4 heavy support slots because while it is a great unit it's not there on turn one and Heavy support is our only source of well priced turn one fire power.

I initially wanted to run this with the cyclone, but I must say I really got a lot of use out of that AP1 from the TLMM.

Coms relay

Due to weird fortification rules you got to pick these without the aegis. Nobrainer for 20 pts even if I never needed the rerolls.

------------

General thoughts and tactics

First off, lets start with nightfight. In 4 out of 5 games I rolled nightfight, but it had 0 impact on my game due to the precautions I took.

Normally I take searchlights on the frag dreads as they generally will be close enough not to benefit from improved cover anyway. This however leaves me with the problem that I can only fire to full effect after using the frag cannon, not ideal when you are dealing with mounted units. Or you might have a really nice target for the fragioso but all armor have 4+ cover or better, might even be out of range all together.

So when building this list I put a searchlight on the TLHB razor that I start on the board. Turn 1 this is a low priority target and thus gets left alone even if I deploy it far up. With a 12" move and 36" gun I can then be in range of pretty much any target on the board and light it up for my predators.

Drop pods, gotta love them! Those extra storm bolter shots never fail to deliver. Use them to force grounding test, extra good on the turn they arrive since they'll be snap firing anyways. As long as you can hit, wound or glance you always have a chance to knock that last HP or wound off without wasting 'proper' fire power.

[CaptainHelion]

I've really got to concur about the TLHF Razorbacks. I've never used them specifically, but I play SoB, and a TLHF Immolator is functionally identical, and I never leave home without at least two. And with BA Razorbacks being fast, you're even more able to get them into position. Definitely more useful than general meta gives them credit for, imo.

 

I'm also glad to hear the DSing Land Raider didn't screw you over! That's been one of the biggest reasons why I've never done it. Although, I am considering droppods with homing beacons...

[Midnightmare]

Nice read K&F, good to hear about your combat situations as you always post with insightful posts (I am going to try Meph on Biomancy in a Raven after your posts in the other thread). Got to agree on the DC Dread in pods, they are a waste of time as they are such a high priority target, but it is a lot of eggs in one Raven if he rolls with Mephy. I do love them though!

 

Sounds a fun tourney with some fun lists (yours included) :)

[Dosjetka]

A great read, with useful insight, Thanks for the write-up :)