Summary of A Thousand Guns pt. IV

[sneakybamsen]

Hello Brothers of the Rock,
 
This saturday I attended a tournament consisting of 3 games in warm-up to London GT (I'm not going, but some of the other attendees are, and some brought their top tier lists), so we played the same missions and used the same rules and restrictions.
 
As some of you might know, I'm not a fan of primaris for the first legion, and even for competitive play, I really struggle justifying their presence when the subject is my dear Dark Angels. Therefore you'll find no lapdogs of Guilliman in my list below, so if you expect the very best we can field, you will be disappointed. My list might qualify as semi-competitive, but it went in against some strong stuff fighting.
 
The rules and restrictions (PDF) for London GT can be found here: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/a7e101_2be3282eff884abf89eeb1d5dd3367f9.pdf
 
I went in with a lot of unpainted models, as I wanted to try out a lot of the stuff I haven't really played yet (knight sitting on the shelf unplayed for nearly two years). Therefore I haven't been taking picures. I'll try to list my opponents armies as I best remember them, forgive me if something is a bit off. Missions played at this 3-game event was the first three from London GT in same order as the games.
 
My list was as follows:
 
Battalion, Outrider and Super Heavy Auxilliary detachments (10 CP)
Azrael (warlord)
Lieutenant with Heavenfall Blade and storm bolter
Sammael in Sableclaw
Company Ancient with bolter
3 5-man squads of Scouts with bolters, bolt pistol and chainswords on sergeants
2 3-man squads of Scout Bikers, bare bones
5-man squad of Ravenwing Black Knights, corvus hammers
Ravenwing Darkshroud
5-man Devastator squad with 2 lascannons, heavy bolter and amorium cherub
6-man Devastator squad with 4 plasma cannons
Cerastus Knight Castigator
 
So how horrible did I do with this not tuned list? First game was against Crimson Fists. His list was not top tuned at all, and I thought I'd have a really good shot at a win.

 

Pedro Kantor
Primaris Lieutenant
2 masters with jump packs, storm shields and big smashy weapons (relic thunderhammer and something long those lines)
5-man Scout squad with snipers
2 Intercessor squads with powerswords on sergeants
2 3-man Agressor squads with boltstorm and frag launchers
2 Devastator squads with two heavy bolters, two lascannons and amorium cherub.
Predator with autocannon and las sponsons
3 razorbacks with assault cannons, two with hunter-killer missiles

 

He got first turn and only moved forward slowly to stay out of range of my devastators, who I had deployed too far back by mistake (only decent terrain in my deployment zone). He nearly killed two scout squads, but not quite and put a few wounds on my knight, but no major damage. He did score the one maelstrom point he had declared before drawing cards, but not much else. My first turn was a bit more productive, although I should have made ammends immediately for deploying my firebase too far back, alas I didn't, because the lascannons at least had things they could reach. This fact meant my destructive punch was somewhat diminshed for a good part of the game, but also that my firebase was relatively unscathed thoughout. I had a lead after turn 1 (first blood and an objective plus killpoints, and he had a semi-meagre turn two, so I thought I could build a solid lead. Unfortunately the two cards I drew were nigh on impossible, so my declared two maelstrom missions for that turn, meant I scored no maelstrom points, and he got two points instead. One good thing was my knight getting really close to his army after having put his agressors in their place, and when he killed it, it blew up in his face doing severe damage to a lot of targets, but not killing much. That was of course in his third turn in which he scored a ridiculous amount of points. I did what I could after that, but that confident feeling pregame had gone, and it was uphill. That maelstrom failure in turn two and the fact that he was mostly out of reach of my firebase meant I lost 12-8 in game score.

 

Second game was against Tallarn AM. I knew this would be painful, preparing to just rip models of the table before I could even say hello. My opponent had been tabled in the first game against something even stronger, and ending up against him, wasn't really a good matchup for my list. Nevertheless I decided I wouldn't back down, have the most fun I could and see if my opponent would too.

 

Platoon commander (warlord)

Primaris psyker (wierd name for something not in Mk X power arrmour)

Commisar

Ogryn Bodyguard

3 squads of guardsmen

3 Mortar teams of 3 each

Shadowsword

Baneblade

Banesword, Shadowbane or whatever it's called. 3 different superheavies I knew I had no real answer for, except for a super lucky first turn.

 

Long story short - he got first turn, didn't move much except for going for two objectives, and shot my army to smithereens. Luckily for me, he targeted the dev squad with lascannons and heavy bolter, thinking they would be the biggest threat to his tanks. But not until after the Shadowsword had annihilated my knight before it even got to move. It went to around -7 wounds in 1 turn of shooting. It failed all its invul saves bar 1, I think, a horrible start to my dice rolling in that game. That got better as his rolling got worse, and he quickly became casual, which meant I actually got to hold out till his fifth turn, before he tabled me. My first turn I went in hard, scout bikers on one flank advancing to get one of his objectives, black knights and plasmastators obliterating his leftmost superheavy in superheated plasma carnage. I of course overcharged and I think I lost a black knight, but that was it. Sammy and dark shroud went for the mortar teams, and did decent work on them, managing to kill a squad a turn for two consecutive turns.

He later deepstruck two squads of guardsmen with the commisar behind my remaining HQ's (all I had left at that point) and they got their behinds handed to them by Azrael, Lieutenant and Ancient. Lost 0-20 as I had foreseen I would against and army of such strength, but getting 1 super heavy down, scouts doing 1 wound to the Ogryn Bodygard and Sableclaw getting Assasination off of his Primaris Psyker was moral victories.

 

Third game I ended up playing a primaris ultramarines list with Big Robert leading. I had played this guy before (my first game against primaris) in a match where I took a severe beating, so I was hoping I could claw one back on my opponent.

 

Roboute Guilliman

Primaris psyker

Primaris Lieutenant

3 Intercessor squads with grenade launchers and power swords

2 Reiver squads with grav chutes, blades and pistols

Imperial Knight Crusader with rapidfire battlecannon, stormspear rocket pod and heavy stubber

2 Armiger Warglaives with their melta cannon things and heavy stubbers.

 

Again I went second (bummer against a knight crusader and very little actual LOS blocking on the table with the deployment zones we had), and I thought it was going to be rough going, but my opponent didn't roll well, except for 3+ power armour saves, so I survived somewhat intact. He did do some wounds to my knight, but not a lot, and killed some scouts and some scout bikers, but far from enough. He killed most of my one devastator squad even though they were in cover, but again targeted the las instead of the lethal plasma. My lascannons did however do 6 or 7 wounds to his knight as a sweet retaliation for their unjust deaths.

I lashed out with all I could at his crusader, black knights racing forward to deliver plasmatastic vengeance along with the devastators. It went to 1 frikkin wound. Good thing I had used speed of the raven for on the black knights. They charged the crusader along with the scout bikers, and with rerolls they managed the last wound. For his heroic action and willing sacrifice, Huntmaster Thariel deserves no less than eternal glory. The knight exploded, causing no less than 6 wounds to Roboute, 6 and 4 to the two warglaives, a couple to the psyker and lieutenant and some to some intercessors. Thariel was the only Black Knight remaining, the scout bikers all died in the blast, and Sammael took almost critical damage. That blast meant the game changed massively. Having been on the offensive, with their numbers dwindled, the Ultramarines sent the Warglaives after the Castigator and Devastators, but otherwise stayed somewhat defensive.

The big knight shrugged everything they brought off and charged them. It stomped both of them to scrap, to later turn around and lay waste to a flanking intercessor squad before going on the hunt for the remaining Ultramarines. Azrael and Lieutenant managed to finish off Roboute before the game ended. Narrow victory for the Dark Angels: 11-9

 

I ended up in 17th out of 22, but as I mainly play for fun, and don't do top tier competitive, I'm satisfied with that. I did what I could in my games and didn't give up, but played to the mission and tried my best to learn.

 

Conclusion after 3 games with this list. I rolled well enough over three games to have acieved expected performance and perhaps a bit more. My plasma devastators were super efficient, not laying out that many shots, but they just hit hard every game. Black knights and Sammy was nice, however I would have liked to have more Ravenwing and a Talonmaster. I just had to bring that knight, though. My scout bikers were targeted more than I had expected, buying time for my Black Knights and Sammy. Scouts did as expected, not doing a lot of damage but attracting attention. The knight had a massive crosshair on it in all three games, but shone in the third game where it never got threatened really. That said, knights are too expensive to be competitive, and with their size impossible to hide anywhere. Azrael, Lieutenant and Ancient were steady sources of support and damage when given the chance, two devastator squads with those three in support definitely do work. They just need the right spot for deployment. Overcharged plasma with ancient is glorius as you overcharge when you get to shoot that last shot while being incinerated.

If I weren't so uptight about Primaris in the legion, I'd definitely get Hellblasters and Inceptors. They plainly outshine devastators and black knights respectively, they cost more, but bring a lot more pain on average. The next time I go to a similar event, I'll probably not bring a knight, but hopefully have Ravenwing Bikers painted along with darkshroud and talonmaster for better support for the black knights. Also might fit in a dark talon.

 

I hope you enjoyed the long read.

 

Regards

Sneaky