Caledonian Revolution - 2-day Tournament report

[Silentz]

I played in a 100 player 2-day tournament over the weekend called Caledonian Revolution. It was a UK event attended (and won) by members of the 40k Team England and people from right across the country. Really well organised and managed and great fun. 

 

Here are the top 10 finishers in order. Unfortunately I don't know the full lists - just the faction that all units in the army shared. Note that if you had an 80% admech army plus a knight (for example) then you are faction Imperium... so that hides quite a lot of complexity.

 

1 - Imperium (I am pretty sure this was a 5 Stormravens list)

2 - Orks  (Yes, Orks finished 2nd! Would love to know what this list was!)

3 - Ynnari (150+ razorwing flocks, the yncarne, yvraine, maugan ra... horrible list!)

4 - Chaos 

5 - Astra Militarum  (Plasma Scions, conscripts and mortar teams.. since nerfed)

6 - Imperium

7 - Chaos

8 - Adeptus Astartes

9 - Grey Knights (2 NDK's, Kaldor Draigo, lots of storm bolters and smites)

10 - Imperium

 

So yeah, Orks in 2nd place is good news - the tournament was very competitive with a lot of people bringing pretty cheesy lists... things like 12 Heretic Astartes Daemon Princes (8W, can't be targeted unless closest) screened by about 100 brimstones and blue horrors who can all smite.  Vomit. 

 

Another one was 2 Renegade Knights and a Lord of Skulls - who got Warptimed up the table right in your face turn 1.   AAAH!

 

Here's a photo of one table setting up - the 3rd place Ynnari list and a drones-heavy Tau list.  I am so pleased I didn't play anything like this!

 

http://i.imgur.com/UrnK097.jpg

 

 

I am by no means a good 40k player - made many, many mistakes - but was pretty happy to come in 55th place.  Despite going 1-4  (lost my first 4 games, won the final one) I finished above all of my opponents.  This is purely down to never getting tabled and always scoring some tournament points every round.  Loads of people were getting tabled at least once in the 2 days... 8th is brutal!

 

My List:

Army Faction: Adeptus Astartes – Command Points 6

 

Battalion Detachment – Keyword: Adeptus Astartes

HQ: Chaplain - Warlord

HQ: Librarian, Jump Pack, Force Axe

 

TROOPS: 5 Scouts, Sniper Rifles, 5 Camo Cloaks

TROOPS: 5 Scouts, Sniper Rifles, 5 Camo Cloaks

TROOPS: 5 Tacticals, Combi-Plasma, Plasmagun

TROOPS: 5 Tacticals, Combi-Plasma, Lascannon

 

ELITES: 5 Terminators, Cyclone Missile Launcher

ELITES: 5 Vanguard Veterans, Power Sword, Plasma Pistol, 2 Storm Shield/Thunder Hammer 

ELITES: Venerable Dreadnought, Powerfist, heavy flamer, Assault Cannon

 

TRANSPORT: Razorback with Twin Lascannon

TRANSPORT: Rhino

 

FLYER: Stormraven Gunship: Twin Lascannon, Two Hurricane Bolters,Twin Multi-Melta, Two Stormstrike Missiles

FLYER: Stormraven Gunship: Twin Assault Cannon, Two Hurricane Bolters, Twin Multi-Melta, Two Stormstrike Missiles 

 

Army Total: 1997 pts

 

 

Ready for deployment...  I had to borrow one of the Stormravens!

http://i.imgur.com/zXalQJ1.jpg

 

 

The general plan is to go first due to only 6 "drops" and strike aggressively with 'ravens then fly around shooting stuff.  Turn 2 drop the Ven Dread, the Librarian+Vanguard Vets and the Chaplain+Terminators near high value targets so they can melee stuff to death. 

 

 

Note the ETC scoring uses Eternal War AND Maelstrom AND Specials (Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord etc) AND kill points differential - which is why the scores look high.

 

Game 1 vs Orks

I was happy to get a "nice" army to start and moderately confident going into this as my Stormravens put out a lot of dakka.  Prioiritised his Stormboys and Burna Boyz as the two units that might hurt me.  He hid his weirdboy very well so I coudn't snipe it, and he managed to do the obvious Da Jump of 30 boyz into my backfield.   Despite getting FB and STW and doing an immense amount of damage to him, he won on the Eternal War objectives which I honestly forgot to make a move for early enough. 

Highlights - the sheet carnage of the first two turns. I think he was certain he was going to lose.

Lowlights - leaving my libarian exposed with a bad advance roll and getting Mega-nobbed.  Totally forgetting that 4 of the 6 objectives gave additional VPs at the end. 

 

Had to call the game at the end of Turn 4. 

Me: 10vp

Orks: 14vp

 

Da Jump!!!

http://i.imgur.com/18zGg27.jpg

 

Game 2 vs Imperium

Great player, fun army. Black Templars. He had a Godhammer Land Raider, 2 Las Razorbacks, 2 Stormtalons and a knight.  High Marshal Helbrecht giving rerolls to the LR and Razorbacks.

This was my biggest beating.  I wasn't sure what to target priority and wounded a lot of things but killed very little. Stormtalons were effective against troops and ravens. 

Highlights - smashing High Marhsal Helbrecht into giblets with Power Fists. 

Lowlights - Land Raider killed my unharmed venerable dread in overwatch! 8 wounds in overwatch!!!

 

Game ended turn 6. 

Me: 15vp

Templars: 29vp

 

Trying and failing to kill a Land Raider

http://i.imgur.com/eiXnm4s.jpg

 

 

 

Game 3 vs Imperium

This one was vs a weird mix of Raven Guard, Dark Angels and Assassins.

I don't think his army was very effective and I was really annoyed to narrowly lose this one. The assassins were suepr annoying - a lot of the time I couldn't shoot them at all, and they just camped objectives. 

Highlight: Smashing Kayvaan Shrike into giblets with thunder hammers.

 

Game ended turn 6. 

Me: 16vp

Him: 19vp

 

Didn't take any photos of this for some reason!  Tired!

 

AT THIS POINT as we were packing up my opponent said "Don't Stormravens have missiles as well?" and I realised I'd played the whole of day 1 without using them. that's 16 turns...  I gave up maybe 50 shots of S8 AP-3 3 damage. FACE. PALM.

 

 

Game 4 vs Tyranids

Great opponent, closely matched game. The mistake here was enjoying the chat and having fun instead of playing quickly.  We got to the middle of turn 4 but had to roll back to the end of turn 3 as there wasn't time for him to complete T4.  All his nids were out of synapse and starting to flee, I had just snatched the relic, just charged his warlord with chaplain+terminators and although it wasn't guaranteed, I was in a really strong place to win.

Highlight: Smashing Old One Eye into giblets with Thunder Hammers.

Game ended turn 3. 

 

Me: 15vp

Nids: 9vp

Play turns 1 and 2 faster!!!

 

RUH ROH SHAGGY!

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

 

 

Game 5 vs T'au

This Tau player had struggled and been tabled a couple of times. Never played Tau before but I know the rules... shoot the drones first!  He had -1 or -2 to hit on practically everything which was tricky.

He'd put 500 points into Crisis suits who just got blown off the board every game because he didn't defend them with enough drones...  had 3 Ghostkeels who did... okay. Their shooting really isn't as scary as they look on the table. 

He won the Eternal War and got slay the warlord.  I won maelstrom and kill points.

Highlight: remembering to use my terminators' Teleport Homer to zip across the board and snatch a 2vp objective marker I had deployed it near in setup.  

Lowlight - Stealth suits killed my unharmed venerable dread in overwatch! 8 wounds in overwatch!!!   TWICE IN FIVE GAMES!

Me: 20vp

Tau: 16vp

 

This sergeant was pretty pleased when the First Company teleported in right next to him, just before he was overrun.

http://i.imgur.com/cjVs1ia.jpg

 

I won a game! Woo!  In 8th edition I am now: 9 losses, 1 win.  Haha.

 

Lessons learned:

1. Vanguard vets and librarians coming out of a raven in the middle of the enemy are asking to get battered.  They are just 1w 3+ save things that die very, very fast. However, Thunder Hammers and Power Fists are amazing. 

2. Always advance your character FIRST and accompanying unit SECOND.  Otherwise you get situations where the unit advances 6" and the character advances 1" and is stuck in the open. 

3. Rules mistake - one opponent parked his Knight on Objective 3 which was on a raised hill/plateau style terrain - I couldn't charge it as there was no place to put a model near it.  After the match a spectator pointed out that vehicles can't climb terrain in 8th!  

 

 

tl;dr (not surprised) - 8th is awesome. My list was mid-table. Stormravens are strong. 

 

[Captain_Krash]

Rough WAAC tournament Indeed I would never want to play in a tournament like this...

 

Overall though glad you had fun!!!

 

Krash

[Silentz]

Thing is, these tournaments use "Swiss Pairings" so people tend to find their level.

 

If you are strong and win, you move up towards the top tables where the other winners are. So all the WAAC ends up playing itself.

 

If you are not strong and lose, you drift down towards table 50 where *almost* everyone is just there for fun, is great to play against, has nice fluffy armies and really enjoys a good game.

 

I played almost all my games between tables 28 and 38.

 

The absolute worst case scenario is like the Ork player I lost to in game 1... he won the next game too, moved to the top row of tables then got absolutely beaten up, twice... ended the tournament on lower points than me despite having a record of 2-3 instead of 1-4!

 

Getting narrowly beaten is frustrating but still fun

Getting repeatedly tabled is probably not.