First Torunament with New Dex

[Brother Captain Ed]

Played a three round Torunament in my (uncompetitive) FLGS with (mostly) Astra Militarum. I did use an Outrider detachment of Ultramarines on bikes. Sorry, purists, but I dont have Sentinels or Hellhounds and nothing says Hammer of the Emperor like a Space Marine moving at 100 mph with an actual hammer. Ok, list was:

 

Outrider - Ultramarines

Captain on Bike w/Thunderhammer

Bike Squad w/2 Meltaguns

Bike Squad w/2 Meltaguns

Bike Squad w/2 Plasma Guns

Devastators with missiles and a plasma cannon

 

Battalion - Catachans

Company Commander

Yarrick

3 infantry squads

2 heavy weapon teams (Lascannons and Autocannons)

 

Spearhead - Catachans

Tank Commander w/battle cannon, lascannon,and bolters

Armageddon Pattern Medusa

Basilisk

Manticore

Wyvern

Sgt. Harker

 

So lots of guns, some screens, some rerolls, and bikes to speed into gaps and fix units where indirect fire can do work. All the games were Maelstrom and the terrain broke up LoS without being too overpowering.

 

First game was against a two Raider, all terminator Black Legion list led by Abaddon. I was able to get first turn. That was bad for team traitor. I opted to ignore the objectives and go for the table. First turn: LR went down, and the contents took some damage. He got unlucky with psychic phase and his return fire was fairly minimal.

 

Second turn: Second LR went down and the bikes were able to enrage the enemy at a reasonable distance from the guns. The fight phase saw the bikes get beat up, but not badly and the captain cleaved through 4 terminators heading for Abaddon.

 

With his entire force dead or engaged in front of the AM artillery, he conceded. Going first is really good with so much firepower and Vengeance for Cadia is a good stratagem.

 

1-0

 

Second game: Necrons. Don't recall the exact list but typical infantry, wraiths, some kind of walker, Anrakyr and Orrikan, and some giant pylon thing that disentgrates half the table.

 

This was just a bad game. I did not get first turn, but most of the opening was pretty minimal. The Leman Russ was able to Take Cover (another excellent strat) and most of the army was hidden or out of range. The huge pylon thing disentegrated my Basilisk though.

Unfortunately, the response was fairly limp wristed. Necrons died, but not fast enough. I did get a squad of Immortals down though.

 

Turn 2: It fell apart here. His advance was not aggressive, but his objectives were actually scoring him points and mine were not. My bikes failed almost every save leaving the captain flapping in the wind and his wraiths penetrated my deployment zone. Ok, bad, but not insurmountable. ...And then I straight bounced off his army. The Russ did put the walker down, but the entire list, minus the captain and the Russ shot at the wraiths and they were left standing. We're talking FRFSRF, weapons teams, artillery, everything. Just bounced. Then the captain got to Anrakyr...and bounced. I was on tilt by this point and conceded. That said, even thinking clearly, the wraiths were gonna eat my lunch, the captain was alone with the characters and two infantry units, and the death star pylon was deleting a unit a turn. It was all over but the crying.

 

Dice happen, the tank commander is still a boss. 1-1

 

Final game. ...Vs Orks!

So he had three dakka jet fliers, two Gorkanaughts (or Morka...I have no idea), a bunch of boyz, some scortcha boys, and a Forge World ork on a huge bike.

 

Again, I didn't have the first turn and failed to seize.

 

First turn: He roared up and did some shooting. The jets put the hurt on my Wyvern and some bikes and Guardsmen made the ultimate sacrifice. Then I got to shoot. Spoiler alert: Yarrick is amazing. The bikes roared up, both Gorkanaughts died, one jet got mauled, and a few boyz got thinned out. My bikes were actually left wondering what to do as Yarrick calmed nuked 500 points. I was planning on playing to the objectives since his footprint was reasonably small, but I know realize that I can ignore the fliers, kill boyz, and win. I elect to do that.

 

Second turn: fliers finish off the Wyvern. Some bikes get flamed and charged and a few more die. I react by falling back to kill the scortchas and aggressively hurtling across the board with the captain and other squads. Shooting kills a bunch of boyz and the Manticore casually hits the warboss 8 times to erase him. The captain gets in melee with the boyz, killing several anf taking a couple wounds.

 

Third turn: there's not much. I was careless and let one of the jets get close to Yarrick. He dies, but stands back up. The captain goes down to one wound but keeps killing orks. I just mop up the boyz and the fliers are forced to bug out.

 

Yarrick was MVP by a HUGE margin. Rerolling hits and wounds is just brutal. But the orks just couldn't take so much firepower on so few targets.

 

2-1

 

Finished second on tiebreakers. It was a Good day, though I wish I hadn't been so completely forsaken by my dice in Round 2. I probably would have lost, but I've found most games in 8th aren't close unless everyone is playing fluffy. Blow outs seem more common and I wish that wasn't the case.

 

The new Leman Russes are great, and the Manticore and Basilisk do work all the time. Take Cover is great. Have a CP for it. Every. Turn.

 

Otherwise, not much I can say. I hope everyone is having similar results!

Edited October 22, 2017 by Brother Captain Ed

[Guardsman Bob]

Really liking your Rainbow Arty Collation lead by Sgt Harker’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It brought a tear to my eye.

 

Seriously though BC-Ed in general how happy are you with meltaguns on Marine Bikers? It sounds intriguing.

[Brother Captain Ed]

Really liking your Rainbow Arty Collation lead by Sgt Harker’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It brought a tear to my eye.

 

Seriously though BC-Ed in general how happy are you with meltaguns on Marine Bikers? It sounds intriguing.

A gun for all seasons, my friend!  ;)

 

Anyway, the meltas on the bikes are...fine.  I mean there's very little to outright complain about.  I feel like they are a bit overcosted.  Not hugely, but they no longer outright pop vehicles like they used to, but are still priced like they do.  I did like that they weren't necessarily tethered to the captain like the plasma guns were and they did an admirable job killing terminators and such.  I really liked that they could take pot shots at fliers, and shoot after falling back, without frying themselves for doing it.  But one shot a piece makes me miss full rerolls and they really need to shoot first because they can do anywhere between 0 and 12 damage.  ...that's *super* swingy and hard to plan around.

 

Otherwise, they're ok.  The biker package is just expensive.  T5 with 2W is good, but not that good.  A couple bad saves and you can easily have a shooting phase that cost you 350 points.  I like what it does, but I'm not sure it does it well enough for the cost.  The problem is that nothing else in the Imperial arsenal even comes close to filling that role.  So I guess it's bikers or bust for now.

[our_baz]

Congratulations on the wins ed, impressive amount of artillery you have. We need pictures to see the glory of the emperors finest.