1750 Tournament - All batreps and final thoughts added!

[Morticon]

rwaaaar!!! Kick some face in!!!

[Chaplain Admetus]

Face kicked! Or whatever the metallic version of 'face' is... both my games today were against the two Necron armies in the tournament! Brief overview below, full batreps to follow.

 

Game 4 - The Scouring, Vanguard strike

 

Not my friend, the other 'crons. Tournament calibre, AV13 spam. 3 Annihilation barges, 3 Ghost Arks with 5 warriors in each, 2 crypteks in each with the S8 36" lance on everyone, one had a Solar Pulse, 5 warriors on foot, 6 wraiths with 2 whip coils, and two overlords on Command Barges. Revolting. I ended up with scoring Meph for the second time, and chose to keep my big assault squad alive as my tertiary, didn't fancy having to play that one in the Kill Point game that was last. Made the crons go first and deployed out of range to kill a turn of shooting. Got incredibly lucky early doors, nailing his warlord's barge for first blood, and doing a LOT of damage to other tanks on turns 1 and 2, he failed loads of jink saves. Complained a lot about how many 6s I got during the game, I don't think it's nearly as many as he made out but what do I know :P. Finally came down to Mephy clearing out the wraiths bottom of turn 5, giving me the 4 point objective, first blood, linebreaker and 1 FA kill to his 1 point objective and 2 FA kills, he won secondary, and I won tertiary for a very jammy 14-6 win

 

 

Game 5 - Purge the Alien, Dawn of War

 

This time my friend's crons. Not as much spam, more unit variety, but definitely common elements. Despairtek and deathmarks in a scythe were nasty. He made me go first, Meph got two rubbish powers and Invisibility, meaning I could just farm out 2+ cover saves to squads in any kind of terrain. Secondary was 3 objectives on the centre line. My plan was to trade kill points (gaining first blood but losing 2 kill points from my pod and fragioso) and trade points thereafter, and try to pinch it on objectives - almost worked. Final turn I was level on kill points, 1 objective each, and tertiary a tie (I was attacking his base, he was defending, and we had 2 units each in there), with me trying to hold the third objective with tac marines and a priest. Meph charged and towed contesting warriors off (in a challenge with a cryptek), and he had one turn to gun them down - I hit the deck for a 2+ cover save using his own defence line against him, and lost the priest to keep one marine alive - then had one more save, needed a 2+ to win the game, and I don't think I need to say what happened next. Minor loss primary, tie secondary, tie tertiary - 12-8 loss.

 

 

Overall Results:

 

To my schadenfreude, the Farsight bomb crashed out with consecutive 20-0 losses to biker marine lists... I finished above it! First place was one of the biker lists. Second place was the sole Tyranid player, who'd won well after I pinched a game from under his nose to end up fighting the bikes for first place in the final game - nids won, but not by enough to win the tournament. Third equal on tournament points were the other SM bike list and the 'cron armourspam I faced game 4, tiebreak was most Primary points over the tournament which meant the bikes pinched it, pushing the Necrons to fourth. Can't remember who finished fifth, myself and the other Necrons were tied for 6th on 59 battle points apiece, but I had more primary points over the tournament so I'm claiming the official 6th place finish :P. Triple achievement successful - more than 50 points, best out of myself, Necrons and Wolves (with the tiebreak), and best Blood Angel player! (The other BA player got the wooden spoon...literally).

 

 

There weren't many filthy lists there - the majority of the lists were fairly fluff-based and generalised rather than cheddar. There was the biker list that took first, the Farsight bomb, -possibly- the other biker list, a triple-Heldrake list, the AV13 spam Necrons, and a Daemons Flying Circus list that all seemed tournament-lists, everyone else seemed much more relaxed. Apparently some of those had only brought power lists because someone had mentioned to them that it was likely to be quiet a gamey room. I think the list performed quite well overall, I definitely made some sub-par tactical choices which eventually came back to bite me at points but I'm not sure if they'd have been game changing. Very pleased with how I played and the overall result, given the calibre of the opposition and the lists I played, given I had what would probably be regarded as a fairly 'soft' list in context. Anyway, full reports to come during the week!

[Morticon]

Nicely done buddy!!! 

Post game thoughts on Mephy over the libbies and Mephy codex powers over RB powers?

[Chaplain Admetus]

Mephy - codex over rulebook hands down. I swapped for rulebook powers twice and they were awful. Just suits my playstyle and the rest of the list better. He was only really duff in one game, utterly crucial in two, and snagged me points I wouldn't have gotten otherwise in the remaining two, and the regular librarians wouldn't have been able to replicate his feats - I think I made the right choice on the two lists.

 

Tournament thoughts as a whole, the tertiary thing was interesting. In retrospect, I'd have done better perhaps had I taken different options at different times. The actual concept of tournament points making win/loss irrelevant compared to margins was also new, as it meant a 20-0 could completely flip things, a lot of the time the majority of players were really close with few outliers. It's also nice to not have the "I have first blood, so I win" thing and thus automatically catapulting your opponent to the bottom table because you happened to get first turn. I'm not sure how 'well' I played - I certainly got lucky more than once, games 1 and 4 especially have standout moments, and I don't entirely feel that I deserved to end up with the results that I did. I'll put up 4 and a half battle reports (didn't get pictures for the Tau one, but they're not hugely necessary) and see what people think - if I played well or just got carried by the dice. MVP of the tournament was the Storm Raven by a country mile, absolutely key in every game. Nothing particularly stands out as hugely underperforming - if I had to choose, I'd probably pick either the Baal, narrowly over the attack bikes, neither were particularly stellar, the key difference being the bikes didn't have as many opportunities to be good. Definitely changes I'd make, I found the vehicles weren't as survivable as I'd expected which was a problem with kill point secondaries; fragioso may have done damage but almost always gave two kill points away immediately. You were right about the single razor, but I didn't have any opportunities to rectify that other than get rid entirely.

[Morticon]

Mephy - codex over rulebook hands down.....

 

Now where is K&F....

 

:P

[knife&fork]

Mephy - codex over rulebook hands down. I swapped for rulebook powers twice and they were awful. Just suits my playstyle and the rest of the list better. He was only really duff in one game, utterly crucial in two, and snagged me points I wouldn't have gotten otherwise in the remaining two, and the regular librarians wouldn't have been able to replicate his feats - I think I made the right choice on the two lists.

What did roll from the BRB? I saw 'invisibilty' there and I have no idea why you would roll that on divination and not go for the primaris instead

Our librarians are sadly way too expensive to be worth it as buffers, and they aren't durable or killy enough to put in harms way. Mephiston is definitely the way to go unless you have some crazy gimmick build going on.

fragioso may have done damage but almost always gave two kill points away immediately. You were right about the single razor, but I didn't have any opportunities to rectify that other than get rid entirely.

Fragiosos by themselves are too unreliable, they work best supported by one or two units with enough fire power to make sure that you get to kill off a unit completely. Create a little breathing space for the dreads so they can't get rear AV shot easily or charged by something dangerous.

It's tough to run them in pairs at 1750 but I think you should either build your alpha-strike around them or drop it all together.

Did you ever miss those search lights?

[Chaplain Admetus]

Mostly because you can't roll invisibility on divination because it's in Telepathy ;). And the lights might have come in handy once, but I never used the meltabomb at all... I agree Mephy is better, but I do want to try a Dante beta-strike list, which this kind of is.

 

I went for BRB powers twice. Against the farsight bomb I got terrify, invisibility, and psychic shriek, and then cocked up deployment and never got much use from any. Against the crons in game 5 I tried to get Juggernaut Mephy to go in the raven but rolled crap biomancy powers (warp speed and life leech, really needed Iron Arm and/or Endurance), so took his last from Telepathy hoping for something useful, and Invisibility to grab 2+ saves on anything in terrain seemed reasonable. The PLAN was to get good powers from Biomancy, then drop him out the Raven and go wreck face in the middle of the Necron army. Was really hoping for hallucination or the thing that makes them take leadership tests to do anything. That game we both just bunkered down - if he came close he'd get hit in the face, if I tried to get close enough to hit him then I'd get hosed down.

[TheHarrower]

Good job man. Don't think you didn't deserve to finish where you ended up. Luck is luck after all and that pendulum swings both ways. Surely if you keep playing like this you'll end up in a position where things go horribly awry so enjoy it. Happy you took Mephy over the 2 Libbys? Any other changes you'd make?

[Morticon]

nice they let you roll three! 

[knife&fork]

Mostly because you can't roll invisibility on divination because it's in Telepathy .

That's the one. Divination doesn't have any 2WC powers at all, does it.

I went for BRB powers twice. Against the farsight bomb I got terrify, invisibility, and psychic shriek, and then cocked up deployment and never got much use from any. Against the crons in game 5 I tried to get Juggernaut Mephy to go in the raven but rolled crap biomancy powers (warp speed and life leech, really needed Iron Arm and/or Endurance), so took his last from Telepathy hoping for something useful, and Invisibility to grab 2+ saves on anything in terrain seemed reasonable. The PLAN was to get good powers from Biomancy, then drop him out the Raven and go wreck face in the middle of the Necron army. Was really hoping for hallucination or the thing that makes them take leadership tests to do anything. That game we both just bunkered down - if he came close he'd get hit in the face, if I tried to get close enough to hit him then I'd get hosed down.

Using 'terrify' on the farsight bomb isn't a bad plan when you have a ML3 psyker of your own. But if that was the first power you rolled on telepathy it should have stopped there. The only problem is using it to any effect without an opportunity to alpha strike the death star in his own deployment zone, close to his own table edge. With fearless and Atsknf you can possibly destroy the unit by blocking a legal fallback move, but generally we don't have the numbers to pull off something like that on a hyper mobile unit. A fully tooled up Mephiston could actually put the hurt on that deathstar if you have another unit eat the overwatch.

I think you should have gone for the third roll on biomancy in the necron game. Worst case you end up with 'heamorrage', but everything is useful in some way. You didn't write much on army composition in that game. Mephiston should be able to much through most things necrons bring to the table. Was there something in particular that made you unwilling to commit him in an offensive role?

In general just try to avoid and maledictions and witchfires, blessings are much better on a character like Mephiston. No 'deny the witch' , no to hit roll and no need to in range of anything but yourself.

Overall though you seem to have made the right call. Next time we'll see you in the top 5? ;)

[Chaplain Admetus]

I didn't deploy Meph against the Farsight Bomb as I figured he'd just get shot in the face before I got a chance to terrify it. In retrospect, I probably should have deployed him - my only defence is that it was the end of a long day and I've never faced a Farsight bomb before. I spent ages decided whether to put Meph or some dudesmen in the Raven, and twigged I'd made the wrong call approximately 30 seconds too late.

Anyway, actual Batreps time! I'll try and get two today (and my Farsight overview), and two tomorrow. But first... gratuitous army shot!

My army on display after round 4 for the Player's Choice award. Note the fact that I have cleverly demonstrated my mathematical genius by setting up one squad of eleven assault marines and one of nine.

Game 1 - Crusade (4 Objectives), Dawn of War

Game 1 I'm up against the sole Tyranid list in the room. He's got 2 dakka flyrants, a mawloc, 30 termagants, a Tervigon, 6 genestealers plus broodlord, a venomthrope, and a brood of 3 carnifexes (all with many sets of twin-linked devourers). Oh, and 3 biovores. One flyrant has hive commander. He gets the Tyranid warlord trait that gives him 2 VPs for every enemy IC killed in a challenge (I only have 1, my priest, and I have no inclination of letting him get anywhere near it), and Mephy gets +1 VP for any character he kills in a challenge. Unsurprisingly, since the Nids have MC characters with nowhere to hide, I take 'win a challenge' as my tertiary; he takes 'keep a unit alive' and opts for his carnifexes... yeah, I'm not getting that unless Meph somehow murderises all of them in one combat phase. Nids won the first turn roll.

Deployment. He bunkers to one side, I counter by spreading out. Devs and bikes on the far flank; I deliberately put the Baal on this flank away from everything because it's fast enough to redeploy, and I wanted to discourage his genestealers from infiltrating over here. I have 5 guys with flamers deep-striking, 5 guys with power sword in the Raven.

Turn 1 - Tyranids:

Everything swarms down my right flank, flyrants and genestealers getting pretty close. He puts one flyrant into my bikes to no effect, and the other into my devastators - I'm called upon to take 6 armour saves, and fail 4. Sub-par dice also cost me two assault marines to the biovores. Everything else just runs forwards.

Turn 1 - Angels Sanguine:

Continuing the colossal dice failure, Meph flunks Wings on an 11, and then rolls a '2' to move out of cover. The furioso lands and frag cannons his stealers, but the Tyranids make altogether far too many 5+ saves for my liking. Bikes shoot as well, but he ends up with the broodlord alive on 1 wound, and 1 stealer alive. The Baal moves up and turbo-boosts to get its back hidden in case of gants getting behind it, and the assault squad moves and runs. Meph rolls a '1' to run, but gets a 6 on his re-roll and makes it into the shadow of the pillar. The devastator can't get a hit with his missile launcher, but the snap-firing storm bolter on the pod actually manages to hit and wound his warlord, who fails a grounding check and loses a wound. Finally, the bikes charge the stealers and tie combat (though I forget my bonus attacks for charging, which may have helped).

End of turn 1. Mephiston's done so much that he thinks he's earned a nap. It's hard work being a Legendary Fighter...

Turn 2 - Nids:

His mawloc attempts to arrive under my tac marines, but scatters towards my table edge instead (but not off). Non-warlord flyrant perils whilst attempting to cast catalyst. He comes down and goes after the fragioso, whilst the other goes after the pod. The gaunts arrive from the wrong side, for him - on the left, miles away from anything useful. Everything else advances. He shoots something at my devastator, who makes his saves. The assault marines are not so lucky, and most get gunned down by the carnifexes getting a STUPID number of shots. My furioso and pod also bite the dust, giving the bugs First Blood.

Turn 2 - Angels Sanguine:

I get both my reserves. The Raven flies in a mere 18" from the right hand corner, and the flamer assault squad drops into the terrain with the gantry in the top left - nothing can reach to threaten them, and they're within striking range of an objective on the final turn. Meph gets wings, but the Baal immobilises itself trying to move - looks like it's staying put! The tac squad moves away from the Mawloc, and I agonise over what to do with Meph. I can either come back to get the Mawloc, OR I can go after that Tervigon before it spawns. In the end, I decide I need the Tervigon dead more than I need the 5 tactical marines alive, and go that way, the tiebreak being that I can get my tertiary objective in the process. Razorback moves and guns down some gaunts. The storm raven reduces his flyrant to a fine red mist - and because he landed, he couldn't even jink, that nets me Slay the Warlord. I take a wound off the venomthrope despite its 2+ cover, and Meph faces an 8" charge with fleet... which he fails Bikes and stealers continue their slap fight.

Turn 2. Legendary fighter my backside...Legendary Failure's more like it... if he lasts a turn against the Nids I'll be shocked.

Turn 3 - Tyranids:

Gaunts have to move into cover for Instinctive Behaviour - they're useless for the remainder of the game. Mawloc goes after the tactical marines, everything else makes a beeline for Mephy. He loses a wound from the Tervigon's two shooting attacks. The biovores miss the tactical marines, and then the flyrant and the carnifexes pound at Mephiston. He gets more wounding hits than math-hammer dictates given that he's only wounding on 4s, the flyrant takes off a wound leaving him on 3, and the Carnifexes get not quite enough wounds (14 I think?) to make him dead, but I roll enough ones that that volley alone would have dropped him from full wounds for Slay the Warlord. Mawloc charges the tac marines but only kills one, I break and make it away.

Turn 3 - Angels Sanguine:

Raven moves across after his big blob of MCs, tactical squad retreats, assault squad converges on the Mawloc. I shoot everything from the Raven into the Tervigon, it survives on one wound thanks to being able to claim cover from the Tyrant's wing (frown). Devstator misses again. I charge the Mawloc and take it down to three wounds, lose a few models in return, and tie combat.

Turn 4 - Tyranids:

Tervigon advances towards the central objective, carnifexes move towards my Baal. The flyrant comes down and goes to help the 'stealers against my attack bike. Dakka does (mercifully) not much, but the biovores kill two of my tactical marines. In combat, I can't hurt the mawloc and he whiffs; the flyrant assaults the attack bikes and clears me out. Crucially, he forgets to spawn on his Tervigon until it's too late.

Turn 4 - Angels Sanguine:

Slim chance is better than none, so I grab the bull by the horns and try to wrest some points from the game. The Raven hovers and goes after his remaining flyrant, everyone else pretty much stays put except the Razorback which moves to a more central position. The assault marines disembark from the Raven, and eye up the broodlord on one wound. I put all my dakka into the Tervigon and take off it's last wound (the devastator flunked again), and the Raven wounds the flyrant, knocking it to two. I send in the assault marines, they clear out the broodlord, and consolidate onto the objective.

End of turn 4. His only remaining troops are too far away to affect the game (out of shot to the left), and I still have 5 ASM hiding in that terrain piece at the top left.

Turn 5 - Tyranids:

We know this is going to be the last turn since we're running low on time, and we both want lunch. The Tyranids move the carnifexes, but they're too far away to contest that open objective - he has to forgo shooting and run them into contesting range. The Mawloc prepares to nom the tactical squad, and the flyrant readies itself to charge my assault marines. Mawloc does indeed kill my tactical squad, removing my presence from that objective. Flyrant charges in, and my 4 regular assault marines swing with krak grenades, taking off one wound. The sergeant readies his power sword, scores two hits.... and gets a six to wound, dropping its final wound and securing me that objective. That's huge.

Turn 5 - Angels Sanguine:

The Razorback moves and disembarks the 5 remaining marines onto the middle objective. Raven turns and hovers back. We do a quick count - I have a major win on Primary for 10-0, he has major win on Tertiary for 0-4, and he's currently 3 kill points exactly ahead of me for a major win on Secondary, which would be 0-6, making it a 10-10 draw; I need to get one kill point in my shooting phase to take the game. I channel all my guns into that sodding venomthrope that's been shrugging off bullets all game and finally weight of dice picks up that 1 that I'm looking for!

End of the game!

Primary - I have 2 objectives, warlord, linebreaker for 7; Nids have first blood, warlord, linebreaker for 3 - Major Victory, 10-0

Secondary - He's got 2 kill points more than me; Minor Loss, 3-3

Tertiary - He's completed his tertiary objective, I have failed - Major Loss, 0-4

Angels Sanguine take it 13-7!

Clearly I can't roll dice well early in the morning... without meaning to make excuses, my dice rolls the first two turns were unapologetically awful. 4 out of 6 armour saves failed, fluffing wings, failing an 8" charge with fleet (Ok, that's not so bad, but 8.5 is the expected charge range with fleet so the odds were in my favour), immobilising the Baal... The Tyranid player had good strategies, and played it well, but was a bit unfortunate with his psychic powers, rolling Psychic Scream on every one of his MCs. Even so, he kicked me from pillar to post for most of the game, but I played to my outs looking for a 10-10 draw, or realistically a slim defeat (I always knew I could pick up some kind of win on Primary, but the rest were gone) - the key points were him forgetting to spawn with his Tervigon, but crucially my assault marines managing to fend off a hive tyrant in close combat. I don't think either of us were anticipating that. A hard fought game and a lucky win, but I'll take it.

The Tyranid player went on to win the rest of his games, fighting for the title on table 1 in the last round against a biker SM army; he won but not by enough to take the tournament, meaning he placed second behind said biker army. A narrow margin of victory means I should be hovering around the middle tables, not against any brutal lists that went 20-0 or anything silly like that in their first game. Hilariously, Orks managed to defeat Chaos, meaning there's a triple-Heldrake list floating around the lower tables; my friend's Necrons managed a 20-0 against the other Blood Angels, and would face the Farsight bomb on table 1 in round 2, as it defeated the Wolves 18-2.

[Chaplain Admetus]

nice they let you roll three!

Ran it past the TO first; and had the screenshot of the Digital dex if necessary where it specifically tells you to generate 3 for Mephiston; don't think there'd have been many arguments against something that reasonable given some of the other stuff that got let in (more on that later). Anyway, game 2!

Game 2 - Big Guns Never Tire, Hammer and Anvil

This round I'm up against one of the 5 marine armies floating around, and it's mildly scary - MSU imperial fists! He had a captain, artificer armour, power fist; 2 dreadnoughts with lascannons; 3 multi-melta attack bikes; 3 landspeeders with multi-meltas; 6 5 man tactical squads with heavy bolters; two twin-linked heavy bolter razorbacks; and 3 5-man devastator squads. We've got two objectives apiece, and his both go deep in his deployment zone (I do have to point out to him that they have to be more than 6" from the table edge and 12" from each other). So, I'm going to play against an army with 9 scoring units, lengthwise, with upwards of 20 heavy weapons, and have to walk INTO the bullets in this game, am I? Fantastic. At least I have scoring Mephiston - I also managed to seize the initiative after he deployed first, with night-fight on turn 1. His tertiary was to kill my big assault squad, mine was to have more units in my deployment zone than enemy units as I figured he had very little that had a chance of getting near me.

I have to say one thing beforehand - this was the most frustrating game of the tournament by a LONG way. Nice as he was, my opponent was very new to 6th edition, and hadn't played in a LONG time (as in, asking if he could still put guys on overwatch to shoot me when I came out of combat). Lack of rules knowledge led to him questioning almost everything, which bogged the game down. He was also incredibly slow, to the point where other games were well into their first turn before he'd even finished deploying, and I was taking <10 minute turns later on, deliberately blitzing them trying to get to an acceptable turn number.

Turn 1 - Angels Sanguine:

This is actually taken after my first turn. My melta ASM are in reserve, my Baal is outflanking, and 5 other guys from the same ASM squad are in the Raven. I've thrown everything forwards except the devastators and 5 tac marines with ML which are sitting on the ziggurat. The frag cannon furioso turned up and then failed up a storm by failing to take out a unit of devastators on an objective. Note the cunningly placed objective on a high level of the ziggurat so I can pinch it with my storm raven if I need to

Turn 1 - Imperial Fists:

His stuff mostly advances (including his dreadnought moving out from behind that disc) - I suggested using anything ruin-y as 4+ cover, and everything else as area terrain and he agreed, and now it became apparent that he didn't know what area terrain actually -meant-, which was a nuisance, and had to spend time explaining that; didn't seem keen that the open looking terrain gave cover for being in it, but there was no way I was going to play against an army of this shooting-ness on planet bowling ball. The dreadnought proves surprisingly resilient with cover from the drop pod - it goes down for First Blood but sponged almost all of his heavy weapons fire. I lose a wound from each attack bike on the far side due to line of sight trickery (the razorback could only see one, the dreadnought could only see another, meaning that one failed save to each meant one wound on each rather than a dead bike), much to my opponent's consternation.

After the first Shooty-marine turn.

Turn 2 - Angels Sanguine:

I only get the predator from reserves, it comes on in the far-right corner. Once again, things move forwards - the Razorback pelts down the middle of the table. The attack bikes advance down the right flank and dent a dreadnought, but don't destroy it, and my missiles do similar to the one on the left (can't remember how many because he kept removing hull-point dice to roll them). The Baal predator killed a few devastator marines, but failed to wipe a squad as I'd hoped.

Turn 2 - Imperial Fists:

He takes the bait and sends the attack bikes back to deal with the Baal, and other things move forwards. Commander detaches to bag himself a drop pod. The dreads and the speeders advance. However, this turn his shooting is golden - he destroys my Baal, finishes the attack bikes, destroys the razorback, kills all the marines that were inside, and flattens eight of my assault marines! Ouch...

Pictured: State of play after two turns. Not pictured: steadily mounting pile of Angels Sanguine corpses...

Turn 3 - Angels Sanguine:

I unleash the only thing that ever works for me - Fortune favouring the bold. The Raven comes in and blasts 36" down the right flank, and the assault marines arrive behind the razorback. The surviving 2 assault marines and priest leap back behind the ziggurat out of sight, needing to hide. Mephy gets wings and jumps forwards, aiming for the dread. I shoot down the right dread, severely damage the razorback, and kill many marines with the furioso and tac squad, and the devastators bag a landspeeder. I immobilise and remove the gun from the other razorback with my melta, and Meph snags himself a dreadnought (taking a wound to perils), and consolidates into the cover that would be left by the dread.

Turn 3 - Imperial Fists:

Attack bikes come back my way, and speeders line up on Mephy. Not much other movement. I lose 2 devastators to shooting, most of my deep-striking assault marines get away unhurt though. The star of the show is Mephiston who takes almost the entire army's shooting - thanks to his 2+/5++ (in cover) he manages to cling on with a single wound remaining!

End of turn 3. Still looking grim, but with the Storm Raven and Mephy in play I've at least got something to work with.

Turn 4 - Angels Sanguine:

On one wound, I don't normally risk powers with my psykers unless it's absolutely necessary. In this case, It's pretty much mandatory if I want to have a chance. He moves up towards the tactical squad, and the assault marines move in on the survivors of the Fragioso attack. The Raven goes 18 and finishes on the smaller ziggurat; stuff in my DZ stays put (this is where I started playing really fast to at least try and finish the game). The Raven shoots down some devastators, and I pop a landspeeder with missiles. Meph makes it into combat, and doesn't wipe the tactical squad - they break, but I catch 'em, and remain locked. The assault marines scrap the devastators though, and hold the objective! For now...

Turn 4 - Imperial Fists:

Remaining speeder and the bikes come round to the right side of the ziggurat, but not much else moves - this is where I'm getting REALLY frustrated, as the marines are taking ages to do nothing. He shoots down all but one tactical marine with ranged fire and all the meltas. My assault squad up the back bites the dust, and his commander is going solo. Meph finishes the marines and consolidates into the centre.

End of turn 4. There's still an absolute mess of marines in his deployment zone.

Turn 5 - Angels Sanguine:

Thanks to the absolutely glacial pace of the marine player's turns, this is going to be the last one we have time for. I move the last tactical marine round to where he can't possibly be got by the speeders or bikes. I move the assault marines up to sit on the objective, but cunningly leave the priest behind on his own (as this guarantees me my tertiary - I now have three units in my deployment zone, best he can get is two, and he can't get round to target any of mine). The Raven hovers and sweeps round, and the assault squad disembarks. Meph advances on a tactical squad near an objective. My raven frags a devastator squad into oblivion to pick up another Big Guns point, and the assault squad charges and snags me the third, with them breaking from combat and running off the board - 3 points for dropping all his heavy support choices. Even better, his only weapons capable of hurting the Raven are miles away (he COULD charge and try and glance it to death with krak grenades, but I don't think he'll spot the opportunity). Meph gets bogged down in assault, but that's fine because he's contesting.

Turn 5 - Imperial Fists:

Not much he can do - the bikes get linebreaker. The speeder flies over to threaten my assault marines; and the rest of his tactical marines take aim at my assault squad. His shooting isn't effective, I still have some marines left. He tries to fly his landspeeder to contest my objective from the assault marines and I have to remind him that vehicles haven't been able to contest for two years, and he opts to shoot instead, killing one. Finally, he launches last-ditch charges - captain into Meph, and a squad pistol-shoot then charge my assault marines. Amazingly, I cut down all of the tactical marines that charged, securing me another helpful kill point AND an objective. Meph issues a challenge, and casts Sanguine Sword and Preferred Enemy. I end up scoring 4 wounds, and there's a 1 amongst his armour saves, netting me Slay the Warlord with the final act of the game.

End of the game! Raven's actually been moved before I took the photo, it was just behind the ziggurat thing near my assault squad.

Primary - I have 3 objectives, 3 heavy support kills, Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker, he has First Blood and Linebreaker -Major Victory 10-0

Secondary - It's close. I can't remember the exact score, but neither of us have won by 3 or more points - Minor Win/Tie/Minor Loss 3-3

Tertiary - As you can see, my assault sergeant (same one that killed a tyrant!) is still alive, and I've defended my base - Major Win 4-0

Angels Sanguine Victory 17-3

Another game where I was getting battered and then turned it around; the difference was that this time I always knew the first few turns were going to be tough as I walked into gunfire. I was always going to have to wait until turn 4/5 to pull something off - my opponent commented that he lost something like 500 points of his army on turn 5. I was playing to win the long game. As I said before, this game was so frustrating due to the sheer scale of the marine force and the inexperience of my opponent; I think it took him longer to deploy than it took me to play out my turns 3-5 combined. I was torn between playing fast to try and ensure a reasonable length of game, or taking my time and not making any tactical blunders. I didn't miss anything major, but there were a few nuances that I spotted a few moments after passing the turn to the marines.

Man of the match has 3 contenders - Mephiston for tanking like a boss and wading through a flank practically solo; the Storm Raven (and it's cargo) for doing the same on the -other- flank; and the Ziggurat - I've no idea why my opponent let me have that side of the table but I was more than happy to shelter behind it and jump out late game. I honestly can't decide which was better, as the Raven was a package deal with the marines.

Anyway, two games down and I'm sitting on 30 tournament points out of a possible 40, and am tied for second place going into round three. Sadly, I'm about to be a victim of my own success as I square off against the Farsight Bomb, which leading the tournament after crushing the Necrons 20-0...

[Chaplain Admetus]

Last one for today, my overview of game 3. Unfortunately, no pictures due to my phone critically failing. I'm against the Farsight bomb, which has used a bit of loophole abuse to get a REALLY busted list. He has 3 Skyrays, 3 battlesuits with t-l burst cannon/burst cannon, 2 solo suits, and 5 SM scouts. The rest of his army has gone into the Farsight Bomb, containing Sevrin Loth who chooses his powers (in this case Gate of Infinity, Telekine dome, and I forget the third). Farsight (obviously), a commander, and a ton of suits and drones. Everything had target locks. Good mix of fusion blasters, missile pods and plasma rifles. Where it gets iffy, however, is that he also had the command and control node which twin-links things, Multi-spectrum sensor suite which ignores cover, and Puretide Engram Neurochip, which gives the unit a USR from a specific set but he only ever used Tank Hunter, which are all from the Tau Empire codex (hence most Farsight Bombs usually ally in a Tau commander to get this, meaning they don't get the Sevrin gate shenanigans). Farsight enclaves don't get access to the Tau Empire signature systems...or more accurately, the exact wording is "any character in your army that may select signature systems may not select from those listed in Codex: Tau Empire", and his argument was that since bodyguards aren't characters, they can take them just fine...and the TO allowed it, even though they both said there's no way it was intended to be used like that. Mega-unimpressed, but if the TO okayed it I'm certainly not going to argue.

 

Anyway, the plan: I'm pretty screwed and don't see a realistic way to win, so I aim to play for points. I nominate his scouts as a unit to destroy as I'm fairly sure the fragioso can kill them and get me some tertiary objective points, then try not to get tabled and sneak out with 2 points, 4 if I can deny him his tertiary objective (which is win a challenge, so that should be manageable). I win the roll off for first turn and elect to give it away, as I plan on reserve shenanigans; I also elect to make him go first, so that I can try and contest objectives. Meph rolls up Invisibility, Terrify and Psychic shriek. I make one big mistake and put him in the Raven instead of 5 ASM, assuming he'll get immediately annihilated on turn 1. But he could have sponged damage, and I'd have had a scoring unit ready to drop. one ASM squad (meltas) combat squads into reserve, deep striking, Meph in Raven, Baal outflanking. Everything else splits up, 2x tacs and razor on one flank with the attack bikes, devs on the other. He's got all his suits reserved, all 3 skyrays deployed in a corner, and the Farsight bomb is in a line across his DZ exactly 2" apart for Gate shenanigans. I fail to seize.

 

Turn 1 he moves up, gates, and unloads everything. 2 Skyrays fire all their missiles and obliterate my assault squad, and the bomb gets my bikes and my razorback and most of the tactical combat squad that was outside. My turn, the pod comes in and nails the scouts that infiltrated onto the Relic.

 

Turn 2 he gets all his reserves. 1 suit walks onto his EW objective in a corner (behind the only LOS blocker on the table, even that has a small gap), the others deep strike. The bomb and the DS suits kill all my models on the table barring the last tactical marine with his missile launcher. But he makes one massive, stupid mistake and doesn't move the sky rays. I retaliate with an absolute beauty of a beta strike as I get all my reserves (damn, wanted the 5 ASM without melta to stay off) - everything goes for his Skyray castle in my far left corner, including the Baal behind the one still with all its missiles. The Baal has a shocker and only scores a glance into the rear armour (damn...), the melta ASM break one, and the Raven uses its melta/bloodstrike to break the third, and machine-spirits the assault cannon at the first - I get a penetrating hit, but get the worst possible result and immobilise it. The missile launcher takes a pot shot but fails.

 

Turn 3 he has a howler as Sevrin fails to Gate (had to happen sooner or later!) and its efficiency is consequently reduced. He puts a lot into the Raven including the remaining skyray, but manages to roll really poorly with the bomb (that targets it) and fails to hurt it, kills all but one ASM with the rest of the squad on the far side of the table, and my last tac marine dies at some point. The Skyray has a shocker and only scores two damaging hits, and I evade both like an absolute boss :D. My opponent is unimpressed and grumbles about how the Raven should be dead; I politely point out that frankly the Sky Ray shouldn't even have been alive to attempt it, so it's honours even on that score. The 3 suits  glance the Baal. I retaliate by moving my lone sergeant back towards my EW objective, and putting the Raven off the board, using the ASM with melta to finish the Skyray, and the Baal cuts down two of the 3 suits.

 

Turn 4 onwards are hazy, but the game went all the way to 7. On turn 4 the Raven reappeared and killed his last suit from the unit of 3, turn 5 he nicks a hull point, it flew off and Meph jumped out en route, psychic shrieking the suit off of his EW objective, and somewhere on the way my sergeant killed the suit off of my EW objective. He managed to draw a bead on Mephy and also got my ASM sergeant. On his final turn he finally manages to break the pod and gets two results on my two hull point raven, but I make my jink saves to keep it alive and avoid the tabling. I just have that, but I killed everything that wasn't the Farsight bomb - Not bad!

 

Primary - I have nothing, but he only has First Blood and Slay the Warlord, meaning it's only a Minor Loss 3-7

Secondary - I got 7 kill points, he got more than 10, Major Loss 0-6

Tertiary - I got the scouts, he didn't win a challenge, Major Win 4-0

 

Tau Victory 13-7

Really pleased to have pulled off a defeat with dignity against such a brutal and gamey list. I went in knowing I was up against it and damage limitation really was my primary goal, just trying to take some Tournament Points from it - 7 was a lot more than I expected. Other than the deployment error I didn't really do much wrong, just went after his other stuff as I knew I couldn't scratch the bomb, and that forced him to take a minor win on the primary. He could have had a major win by gating for linebreaker, but got greedy and went for the table which would have been 20-0 had he got it. Looking back, I notice that I maybe should have been tabled as the bomb maybe should have been ignoring cover thanks to the Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite, and I lived via jink saves, and ordinarily I'd feel bad. However, firstly that requires the model not to fire to have an effect and I can't say for certain it was on something with no guns. Secondly, it was right at the end of a full day's gaming (8+ hours) so we were both quite tired. Thirdly, and most importantly, it's not my job to know what special rules are coming out of that unit (especially when it has so damn many), and he never declared 'ignores cover' when shooting that turn, and did on others, leading me to believe it was an ability that had to be granted (I thought it was coming off the choose-one-of-the-following-each-turn chip).

 

That leaves me on 37 points at the end of day 1, 13 shy of my overall weekend goal of 50. There's a few outliers at the top of the pack, I think the Tau are leading (or close to it) on 51 points - this is where they stay, after getting clobbered 0-20 twice in a row by Biker SM lists. I'm one point above a nice Eldar list, two points above my friend's Necrons (who end up playing each other in round 4), and head home ready to face the other Necrons for my first game on day 2!

 

Any comments on the first three games are greatly encouraged, I apologise for the relatively rubbish quality of the Tau report. I'll be back tomorrow to update (hopefully) with games 4 and 5, and overall tournament thoughts.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Game 4 - The Scouring, Vanguard Strike

First game on Sunday, and I'm facing AV13-spam Necrons on table 3! I actually have a copy of my opponent's list for this one:

Overlord, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Command Barge with Gauss Cannon (Warlord - Re-roll reserves)

Overlord, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Tesseract Labyrinth, Command Barge with Gauss Cannon

Royal Court - 3 Harbingers of Destruction (36" S8 AP stupid lance)

Royal Court - 3 Harbingers of Destruction, 1 solar pulse

5 Warriors in Ghost Ark

5 Warriors in Ghost Ark

5 Warriors in Ghost Ark

(1 cryptek from each royal court in each ark)

5 Warriors

6 Wraiths, 2 Whip Coils

Annihilation Barge

Annihilation Barge

Annihilation Barge

Yeah... that's a lot of armour! 8 vehicles with AV13 thanks to quantum shielding, 27 hull points put together. Saving grace is that he only has one unit of wraiths, there's no D-lord tanking wounds, and that I'm not facing this in either Big Guns or Kill Points. Mephiston decides that he wants to be scoring again, another nice ace up my sleeve. I win the roll off and elect to make the Necrons go first.

He deploys everything along his deployment line, except 5 warriors on foot which go in reserve. We're playing the towers as impassable terrain. I keep an outflanking Baal in reserve, and the usual combat-squadding on 5 with melta deep-striking, 5 with sword in the Raven. I keep my guys mostly out of range of his guns - he'll be able to get one or two tanks in range with 12" moves but then snap-shots only, vs power armour and a priest. ML combat squad are in the nearest piece of terrain, devs are fearless and by the pillar. In case the picture isn't clear enough, the 4 pointer is bunkered deep in my DZ, with a 3 near the pillar. The other 3 is off at the far side, 1 in the central building, a 2 amongst the pillars, and the remaining 2 in my opponent's corner.

Tertiary - he chooses to win a challenge. I'm torn as 'take the base' (more units in enemy DZ than enemy units) seems tempting as he'll be coming forwards, but I don't want to have to keep a nominated unit alive in the kill points game as that's basically painting a massive target on it. I choose to keep the big assault squad alive. I choose not to seize.

Turn 1 - Necrons:

He moves everything forward - ghost ark and both command barges advance round the right of the ruin, one ark remains behind it, the other ark goes towards the pillars that the wraiths move into. All 3 annihilation barges move forward. Two barges are in range so open fire, killing a devastator; everything else turbo-boosts.

Turn 1 - Angels Sanguine:

The assault squad moves around the back of the ruins - this is the first step in a wide flanking manoeuvre that's intended to a) keep them safe and b) eventually sweep round onto that top '2' objective. The fragioso lands deep in his deployment zone, lining up where his frag cannon will cover both command barges; his warlord's one will be my primary target, as that is the rearmost barge. Meph moves behind the LoS blocker, and the razorback shifts up near the objectives as the bikes leap forwards. The fragioso opens up and, despite having a 4+ jink, manages to destroy his warlord's barge for First Blood, pinning the warlord, whilst also stripping the other of a hull point. The attack bikes also manage to explode one of the Annihilation barges. Finally, the devastators add insult to injury by KO-ing a wraith; the closest one being one of the Whip-coil pair. Not a bad turn.

And the award for 'Worst Picture of the Weekend' goes to... Meh, you can tell where all my stuff is.

Turn 2 - Necrons:

The warriors stay out, and he elects not to re-roll. Everything advances, giving him a presence of 1 Ark, wraiths and 2 Anni barges on my left, and 2 arks and the command barge on my right. He (unsurprisingly) manages to glance my furioso into the middle of next week, but this takes away shooting from elsewhere. My razorback also goes down, the tac marines disembark near the objective. Shooting kills all but one devastator (out of sight), and the wraiths assault and kill my bikes.

Turn 2 - Angels Sanguine:

All my reserves show up; Baal from the right flank, where he's foolishly presented the rear of his ark to the table edge. ASM turn up but scatter JUST out of melta range. Raven also comes on over there. Assault marines stay put near that terrain piece, Meph goes back across to join them. I plan to have him mulch the wraiths eventually, but want to thin them down first (ideally, I can get the other whip coils). I manage to get rid of the rightmost ghost ark before the Baal fires thanks to some lucky shooting, and the Baal itself manages to gun down the entire squad inside, neither of the crypteks getting back up. The Raven manages to strip 3 hull points from the other ark, and stuns it.

End of turn 2.

Turn 3 - Necrons:

Warriors walk on to near his objective. Wraiths go after my tactical marines, warlord goes for the pod. Surviving, mobile ghost ark is forced to retreat, and both anni barges go after the Raven as he needs it dead. His newly arrived warriors take pot shots at the Baal, as does something else, but to no effect. He shoots down the Raven, killing everyone inside, and gets one of my deep-striking assault marines. The warlord bags himself a drop pod, and the wraiths charge and kill my tac squad.

Turn 3 - Angels Sanguine:

I'm aware that I've been incredibly fortunate so far to inflict the damage that I have, but I need to press my advantage and hope the Necrons can't recover. The Baal turns to face his warriors, I'm willing to sacrifice it if it means denying him that 2 point objective. ASM continue their flanking move, and Meph moves to the top of that piece of terrain. The other ASM go for the ghost ark and wreck it, but fail to charge the warriors. The Baal does successfully wipe out his warriors.

End of turn 3. His surviving command barge is out of sight behind the tower my devastator is near. He's down one Annihilation barge, one command barge, 2 ghost arks, two destruction-teks, and two units of warriors - way more than I'd expected to kill. There's also some dead wraiths.

Turn 4 - Necrons:

Warriors move into the crater near the 1 point objective; they shoot my assault marines down to 2. Warlord goes near them to hope to charge. Surviving command barge with overlord move near to my last devastator, and the wraiths go for my tactical marines. The barge comes back, and the last ark moves near the 2 pointer I'm attempting to flank. He wrecks the Baal, kills the devastator, my two ASM flee (nice, getting closer to the 3 points in the corner), and the wraiths hit my tac squad, but I hold him up.

Turn 4 - Angels Sanguine:

Midway into my turn (after my movement phase) we get a nod from the TO that we're low on time, so agree to play out turn 5 as the final turn. I move my surviving 2 ASM onto the 3 point objective, the big squad moves and runs to get within range of the 2. Mephy comes back and prepares to beast some wraiths - he charges in, and at the end of combat he's left with 1 wraith on one wound. I was clever with positioning as my tactical marines were strung out, meaning the wraiths were in a line - I hit one end with Meph, meaning I can't pile in as the other wraith is too far away for me to reach. Meph therefore consolidates to safety and prepares another attack.

End of turn 4 - Mephy putting in work

Turn 5 - Necrons:

His warriors disembark. The skimmers move a bit, and his overlord on barge moves towards the combat - he has the choice of charging Meph or the tac marines, but Meph is a much longer charge through cover. He does shoot down my last two ASM in the far distance, but doesn't do enough damage to break my assault squad. The overlord charges in at the tacticals (3 left) - I fail my MSS test but don't inflict any damage on my own guys. Warlord only kills one, and the wraith whiffs.

Turn 5 - Angels Sanguine:

I don't want to charge the warriors unless I have to... I -should- win the combat, but accidents can happen, and I'm happy with that being contested. All I need to do to win the game is clear out that last wraith. Meph charges in and casts Unleash Rage - he gets a decent number of wounds, and my opponent makes all his saves bar one... all I needed! Overlord fluffs attacks against the tactical marines, who spit in his face by passing their MSS test, and we end the game.

Game over!

Primary - Necrons have 1 point from objectives and two Fast Attack kills, I have one Fast Attack Kill, First blood, and the 4 point objective, just enough for a Major Victory 10-0

Secondary - behind on Kill Points by a decent way, Major Loss 0-6

Tertiary - He hasn't won a challenge, I have my ASM alive - Major Victory 4-0

Angels Sanguine Victory 14-6

I can't deny it, I got lucky in the first few turns - my opponent was grumbling that I'd rolled a lot of sixes this game but it was more his catastrophic inability to make jink saves that caused him trouble. I think I played it solidly, though having 7 points worth of objectives in my deployment zone was a huge boost. Just tried to aim for targets of opportunity as they presented themselves, and clustered the 4 pointer to try and win with that. I also got to use one of my favourite unorthodox tactics this game in the form of defensive Mephy, as he's usually ranging forwards and smashing face in a Blood Angel army. Real powerhouse - I actually prefer using him defensively to put out fires rather than sending him forward to smash face like I did in game 2. The Necron player was getting understandably frustrated that the dice were heavily facing the marines, but all credit to him for remaining a good sport throughout. He would go on to win his next game 20-0 and tie for third place overall, narrowly missing the award on tiebreakers (cumulative Primary Objective points).

[BloodTzar]

I have one question, where exactly is it mentioned that you can roll 3 powers for Meph. I mean I have been using him this way, although I tough it has been faq'ed and it is well know fact, reading trough I could be wrong, therefore where it is stated please so I have potential evidence. 

[Chaplain Admetus]

Digital codex says so outright in his codex entry, listing Wings, Sword and Unleash, 'or three powers from the Biomancy, Divination, Telekinesis or Telepathy disciplines' - there's a couple of screenshots floating around if you search for them; I suspect posting a link to a picture of Meph's rules page would contravene forum rules so I won't.

[Jolemai]

Yet the current FAQ contradicts that. It's anyone's guess as to which one is the typo, but I guess we'll see once the new FAQ is out.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Indeed. It's one of these ones that's best checked with your opponent before the game, or with the tournament organisers before the event. I imagine that most players would agree that Meph gets to swap for three.

[Jolemai]

Is it consistent with others examples? i.e does Eldrad still get a full selection?

[Chaplain Admetus]

And finally... game five! Been drawn against my friend's Necrons for this one, so should be a good laugh. We've played each other often enough that we know what to expect, and we'll be able to play it amicably and without taking it too seriously.

Game 5 - Purge the Alien, Dawn of War

Secondary for this mission is 3 objectives evenly spaced along the centre line. The 'crons have Zandrekh and Obryon (I think), 2 ghost arks with 5 warriors, a big unit of warriors, 3 tomb spyders with guns, 4 scarabs, 2 annihilation barges, and a unit of 5 deathmarks with a cryptek with whatever-it-is of despair (AP1 flamer that wounds against leadership) in a night scythe. He also has a defence line with Icarus lascannon. I feel that Mephy's talents on the Personal table won't be so hot this game, so roll on strategic instead hoping for reserve manipulation; I get the acute senses for outflankers one... I also go Biomancy hoping to make him a wrecking ball but fluff my rolls, getting warp speed (not so hot) and Life Leech (had hoped for at least one of Iron Arm or Endurance) - I toss my last dice at Telepathy and get Invisibility, very nice as I can just farm out 2+ cover saves to anything in terrain. I derp hard though, and for some reason after turn 1 think it gives just shrouded so don't bother to cast it, as I'm getting my 3+ armour; this may have cost me some casualties. The Necrons win the roll and make me go first.

Deployment. I blob up, melta ASM are deep striking, Baal outflanking, empty Raven (had I got good powers Meph would be in). The Razorback is also in reserve, as frankly it's a liability. The Necrons castle up, but he does make one big mistake in deploying his scarabs, which are in that ruin - easy first blood target. I also have a plan for the attack bikes on the far corner. For tertiary, this is heavily in his favour - I've used everything but take the base, meaning I have to get more of my units than his into his deployment zone; he's saved defend the base for last, meaning he needs to have more there than me! The devs and deployed ASM have Red Thirst.

Turn 1 - Angels Sanguine:

Pod comes in, and unsurprisingly slags the scarabs for First Blood. My goal is to trade kill points with him, giving up an extra (the pod) for First Blood, and try and tie Primary, and pinch the game on Secondary objectives - the whole way I play this game is based on the tactic. I move the attack bikes up in a sacrificial gambit, which pays off as they're able to target and destroy the Icarus lascannon before it intercepts any of my reserves - I give up a kill point here to potentially preserve more. ASM move into terrain, as do Meph and tacticals.

Turn 1 - Necrons:

Most of his stuff retreats into his castle, and he picks off the expected kill points from the bikes and furioso. Pod goes down this turn or next. The spyders repair a hull point my missiles nicked off a tank.

End of turn 1

Turn 2 - Angels Sanguine:

I get all my reserves except the Raven (bingo - the one thing I -needed- to stay out). The Baal comes in behind his corner, aiming at the rear of a ghost ark as part of my tit-for-tat plan. The ASM deep strike into a ruin in his DZ but without line of sight to his army; I run to spread them over 2 floors, as I'm worried about the despair-tek from the Night Scythe. The liability Razorback reverses into a garage below my devastators, out of sight; switches off the engine, and the driver flips open his copy of Boltgun Monthly to pass the remainder of the weekend in peace and quiet. The Baal has a howler and completely fails to do anything to the ark, lost a kill point for nothing.

Turn 2 - Necrons:

His scythe doesn't show, and he hammers the Baal for another kill point. I continue to sit back and hide.

End of turn 2.

Turn 3 - Angels Sanguine:

I catch a break and still no Raven. At the moment we're at a complete impasse - I can't get to him without getting shot in the face repeatedly on the way over; he can't come near me because I'll catch him in combat and murder him. I spread the ASM out a bit more and that's it.

Turn 3 - Necrons:

The Scythe comes in and drops off its cargo - the despair tek catches 4 guys with his flamer and kills them all thanks to wounding on 2s from Marked for Death - the rest of the deathmarks kill another one. He shimmies around a bit more and takes shots at targets of opportunity that I'm trying not to give him.

End of turn 3. I appreciate this is dull, but it's the most tactically sound option for neither of us to advance, as it'll only worsen our chances.

Turn 4 - Angels Sanguine:

The Storm Raven enters with a vengeance and blasts down the flank. Currently, I'm down 4 kill points to 1. The Raven redresses the balance by swatting his Scythe from the sky with extreme prejudice. I have to be brave and send the ASM in against the deathmarks, losing another 3 to overwatch from the despair-tek; fortunately my sergeant snags two kills to the necrons' 0, and I sweep them, consolidating back out of line of sight. With my first blood point, that puts us back level on primary, except for my linebreaker.

Turn 4 - Necrons:

His arks make some forward moves, including one breaking down the flank for eventual linebreaker. I've been careful not to give him any targets.

End of turn 4. Tied primary (unless I can stop the linebreak), it will come down to secondary!

Turn 5 - Angels Sanguine:

Raven hovers and sits in his DZ, out of reach of the annihilation barges. I rotate it to face his army. If he moves to where he'll be in range on turn 6, I can go back into zoom, turn 90, and boost right back to my DZ. Tactical marines move out to the central objective, and surround it so that he can't be in contesting range. The fearless ASM fly to the objective on the right, but 3 fall victim to the black rage and decide that the wall is their mortal foe, and meet it in a blaze of agony. At least 2 are out of his max range, and I don't need to fear them breaking. Some time back I separated the priest who's joined with the tactical squad. My storm raven fires its last two missiles in a last-ditch attempt to take out his ghost ark (almost any result on the table stops linebreaker) but I don't get it.

Turn 5 - Necrons:

He gets linebreaker. His blob advances to take the far left objective. Other ark advances, and the 5 warriors disembark. Everything else opens up into my tactical marines, and I use the final dirty trick in my arsenal - I go to ground. Because he hasn't moved out from his castle, I'm obscured by the Necrons' own defence line and can use it against them for a 2+ cover with Feel No Pain. Despite this, he kills enough to be able to run his 'crons into contesting range. We roll, but the game goes on!

Finally, something happens!

Turn 6 - Angels Sanguine:

Mephy charges the contesting warriors, towing them out of contesting range with their pile-in moves. I challenge and he accepts with the cryptek so the squad doesn't die, realising too late that this was my ploy to keep them away from the objective. I deliberately use my pistol, and the 'tek survives.

Turn 6 - Necrons:

He moves his big squad a little bit, everything else shuffles. The guns once again pound my tactical squad, and I fail 3 saves; ducking a shot from the sergeant onto the priest meaning I lose the kill point I was going to, but still hold that key objective. He has very few shots within range from his warriors, and only one wounding hit gets through. If the status quo remains, we both have 2 units in his DZ for a tied tertiary. He has a minor win on primary, I have a major win on secondary, meaning I'd take it 11-9. 2+ to win the game.... so, naturally, I roll the one Meph kills the cryptek but the warriors hold, and the game ends.

End of the tournament!

Primary: The Necrons have killed 6 units and have linebreaker; the Angels Sanguine have killed 3 units, first blood, and linebreaker... Minor Loss 3-7

Secondary: one each; Tie 3-3

Tertiary: neither of us succeeded, Tie 3-3

Necron Victory, 12-8

Great game to end on, really did come down to the last roll. Was a lot more fun than the stand-off would suggest it was, primarily because we know each other well enough to have traded insults instead of bullets and not taken it entirely seriously. I maintain that my plan to win was solid, and nearly worked right down to the last moment; perhaps I should have tried to annihilate the warriors with Meph and go for a win on Primary, but after his death by a thousand bullets to the Tyranids in game 1 I thought it was too much of a risk, and Meph going down for warlord would have given the crons a major victory instead of a minor one, making a secondary win irrelevant.

The side-effect of this game going 12-8 to the 'crons is that we both ended up on 58 tournament points, tied for 6th position in a field of 20, despite the Necrons having won 4 of their games to my 3 (his loss was a 0-20, whereas I managed to rake 15 points from my two defeats). That's all for games, look for this to be concluded tomorrow with my overall thoughts and a breakdown on how the list and each unit performed!

[CaptainHelion]

Looks like a great set of games! Looking forward to seeing the list breakdowns.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Final thoughts! The tournament was good fun - nobody there was a :cuss, at least not that I encountered, even those with pretty hard lists were still decent about it. It's also nice to play in an event that's not just straight win-loss, as even if you're going to lose it's still worth fighting on to salvage some kind of result - also why conceding a game resulted in a 0-20. I'm really pleased with my overall showing, it's good to show people that BA can compete against some of the newer and more powerful armies in the game.

 

The list itself I think was relatively solid - suffered a little from being almost too balanced. I tried playing it MSU-style most games, and it seemed to work well for the primary missions - notably, I never won Kill Points as any secondary (possibly game 2), largely because of this. It still gave me loads of flexibility for the primary missions, and opponents did have difficulty dealing with up to 6 highly mobile scoring units. What I did find is that this works very, very well as a beta-strike list, giving your opponents a turn or two of grace and then all the reserves show up exactly where they're needed. Games 3 and 4 showed this off magnificently, as I did crippling damage on turn 2 in both games.

 

On the units themselves:

 

Mephiston - solid. Only had one really duff game (round 1) and that was just bad dice. He was critical to victory in games 2 and 4, snagged me points in game 3, and gave me half a chance in game 5. I prefer codex powers as that gels better with the rest of my list.

 

Jump Priest - not much to say. Just a really helpful support element. Was never poor, but never outstanding.

 

Fragioso in pod - Had a couple of unlucky moments in games 1 and 2 where I rolled poorly, but it was pretty good in games 3-5. Definitely need more support though, as it went down fast every time - but a good distraction to save my infantry. If I could guarantee it doing it's job I'd still take it, but ideally I want two.

 

Assault Squads - Really good. These are the workhorses of my list - I love the ability to have two special weapons deep-striking to cause havoc and 5 going in the Raven as a reserve force. The fact that they score is just gravy. I like the flamer/melta split to give me a little bit of crowd control options, but for a tournament list 2 flamers won't cut it - I'd try and find points to upgrade to dual-melta in both.

 

Tactical Squad - tough call. I like the midrange fire support, and the extra heavy weapon lets me form a firebase with the devastators. One razorback is a bit rubbish though, as many people said - in an ideal world, I'd put these guys in a pod alongside a pair of fragiosos in pods, and have the dreads land turn 1 whilst these guys come in later.

 

Multi-melta attack bikes - snagged me something good in every game they got to do something (bogged the stealers down game 1, dreadnought and distraction game 2, an annihilation barge game 4, and a potentially lethal Icarus lascannon game 5) -  maybe shouldn't have been as cavalier with them but they went straight for targets of opportunity.

 

Baal Predator - excellent outflanker as part of my beta-strike. Did suffer from dice-itis though, and the same issue as the furioso of rarely making it a turn or two past entering the table.

 

Devastators - surprisingly decent. Quad-ML offers 4 templates against infantry, and 4 S8 shots anywhere else. Aside from Big Guns they aren't scoring and aren't really likely to be a threat unless your army is composed mostly of light armour transports, but a good thorn-in-the-side unit as they can't really afford to be ignored. Might replace them with vanguard vets, as part of the beta-strike army.

 

Storm Raven - my pick for most vital unit of the tournament, by a significant margin. Only one player brought it down, and that was with a frankly ridiculous level of Tesla; even then it still made its mark before turning into a fireball. Over the course of the weekend it bagged a hive tyrant, most of a tervigon, some marine squads, a sky ray, and a ton of Necron vehicles, and made sure a key unit got to its destination. I wouldn't have won games 1, 2 or 4 without it, and my defeats in games 3 and 5 would have been heavier.

 

So that's it (finally!) - really pleased with my performance and overall result - 59 points and 6th place makes my goal of 50 or more points and placing in the top half, and I have another Best Blood Angel trophy to add to my collection! Thanks to everyone who chimed in with advice and support, and thanks for sticking with it throughout!

[TheHarrower]

Congrats man. Good job on the battle reports too. Makes me want to get back out on the field and play some games.

[Midnightmare]

Good reports as ever, thanks for sharing :)

 

Well done!