Escalation League and quick battle reports

[Galron]

Ni Hao! Greetings from the Jade Dynasty. I feel like its time to raise my legions from their sleep and go cause hunting for new riches amongst the younger races again. I am part of an escalation league and am thinking of going in a different direction than your typical terminator warrior spam. I am looking at something faster. Last week was my first low point game of 9th and I used Emperors Children vs Death Guard and in both games(one league and one for fun) and I was pretty much wiped turn 2 with cleanup on turn 3 and he only used 350 of his points. The power difference between old dexes and new dexes was just impossible to overcome at 500 points so the org is allowing me to switch up. So I think I have decided to go with a concept I was working on a while back, a very fast glass hammer style army although its a little less glassy than my EC.

 

500p Mephrit outrider

Technomancer cloak, voltaic staff, enduring will

6 tombblades with shield vanes and particle beamers

6 tombblades with shield vanes and particle beamers

3 or 4 scarabs

 

Idea here is to be able to cruise around the small board(wow 500 point boards are tiny) bringing 72 s6 shots and a few mortal wounds. Scarabs do the objective thing while the cryptek moves forward to reanimate blade models. He was the cheapest leader I could get that could actually contribute. I am considering the Veil instead of the staff so he can bounce out last minute and take an objective. Probably be more advantageous.

 

750p Mephrit outrider

Technomancer cloak, voltaic staff, enduring will

6 tombblades with shield vanes and particle beamers

6 tombblades with shield vanes and particle beamers

3  scarabs

3 Wraiths

Tesseract Ark

I wanted to continue with my speed concept and added the wraiths and a tanky AT vehicle. This one is still 2 weeks off so I have time to change it. I know I do not have objective secured but feel the fire power I do have should be able to clear the small numbers of troops present. Here is where things are really up to debate.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Galron

[Lord Raven 19]

RAW, in a combat patrol (500-999pt) game, each player may only use a single patrol detatchment. This requires a troops unit. If the organisers and your opponents are fine with what you are doing, ignore this, but I think it would be wise to check with them if you haven't already that running a different detacent is fine.

[Galron]

I have not seen this nor has it been mentioned in the league rules. The only rule I can see is that its 500 points this week and then 750 for the next 2. Must be battleforged, FW allowed, legends not allowed and no 100% 3D printed models. I have changed my 750 plan though so coincidently it will fit a combat patrol.

Both tomb blades, technomancer, royal warden and 20 reaper warriors.

 

The warriors act as a big regenerating distraction carnifex up the middle of the table while the blades drop 72 shots a round hopefully deleting a unit a turn and kiting close combat.

 

If there is a force selection big book rule I am missing that limits detachments like this then I can simply run a patrol with

technomancer and cloak + veil

5 immortals

6 tomblades w/ particle casters and shield vanes

6 tomblades w/ particle casters + 5 shield vanes and make the unshielded one the last to go or the first, I havent gamed it to see which would be more efficient. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

PLayed my second 500 point game using the patrol version of this list. Annihilated a grey knights list 57-19. He mostly had foot sloggers and a couple termies and I was able to move where I needed and single out squads and wipe them using Solar pulse every turn since he took tide of shadows. His dice didnt help him though. Aside from mostly negating my Talent for Annihilations with his agis, he couldnt make armor saves despite usually needing 1s to fail. I played it very much a float like a butterfly sting like a bee kiting out of his charge range taking advantage of the mephrit range extension on the particle casters.

 

I think aside from not having a very maneuverable force, he didnt play it bad. Having -1 to hit my main guys didnt help and he only had a single S7 weapon so all of his guns were wounding on 5s the whole game. His most effective offense was his librarian's vortex of doom or something like that that hit one of my tomb blade squads for 4 mortals and the technomancer for 1 which he living metaled the next turn. You cant beat your own dice though and he managed to double 6 twice and lost 2w on his libby to that. The Aegis'd my inflicted mortals from talent 95% of the time, but then rolled 5 1s on armor saves. His terminators were just as bad at saving and just took one turn of dedicated firing from a squad of blades and the immortals to take them down.

 

My opponent took it in stride and was a great sport about it and we talked college football on the way out the door. Grey Knights have a bunch of casting options(duh) but they also take a lot of box cars and snake eyes. I saw three in just the little 500 point game, one of which killed a strike squad dude, another did a wound to a terminator as he was purifying an objective. They have the potential to be tough, but not on the level of Death Guard. I was enjoying actually seeing normal wounds and damage go through for once.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

I played my first 750 point game and on these board sizes, not getting the first turn decided the game. My opponent was a highly competitive nid player with a swarmlord all buffed up, a large genestealer squad, a bigger devourer gaunt squad, 3 rippers, and one of those big tunneling bugs that he didnt tunnel. So he deployed forward with the GS and swarm lord and had th gaunts, tunnel bug and rippers placed to get objectives. I was in the back of y deployment zone as far in the corner as I could get. Didnt help. He had first turn and double moved his GS 22" and charged my 20 warrior screen.I overwatched with 38 shots and killed 1. He charged fought twice and killed the 20 warriors. I had both characters and a blade squad open up on the GS and kill all but two since he had catalyst on them. Next turn he charged the blades with the two remaining GS who I OW and killed and the Swarmlord. He killed two + a wound, and I brought one back with techno and I RPd the other one. I fired with everything and he went down to two wounds. Other blade squad wiped the gaunts after coming in from reserves. The blades near the swarm charged to prevent him from heroic intervention. My thought process was to defend the characters and their better shooting, especially after my blades success the prior round in hand to hand.They wiffed and he killed two. He regened 2 wounds. His tunnel bug moved 9 inches and rolled 9 for charging and had no problem getting into the other blades killing two. Swarm lord smited 1 and then knocked the rest down in close combat. By the end of the game I had 3 blades left and managed to shoot down the tunnel bug but it was just a moral victory. He won 81 to 40. In retrospect I should have started both blades in the rear line with the warriors more forward as a screen. I would have given me 72 concentrated shots to chip away from the damn swarmlord. The game lasted about 3 hours lol

[INKS]

You should not be able to move 22" in a single turn without a transport and even then...

 

Also sounds like you had some bad luck. 38 shots, 1 kill is pretty bad rolling. But that is RNG for you.

It also sounds like a pretty good learning experience, so there is that to take away from it.

[dice4thedicegod]

Genestealer blobs are nasty. They can move twice (with hq support), chuck out 5 attacks each… only time I’ve played them I was unprepared file their huge threat range (easily 30 or 40 inches) and ate a turn 1 charge from a unit of 15 that had 75 attacks at 2+ , rerolling 1’s. They just detonated my warrior blob and put me on the back foot.

 

Taught me the necessity of having some scarabs for screening!

[Galron]

You forgot they can also attack twice too and every 6 to wound is a -4ap.

 

beware flyrants. They can get boosted with the double move too. 32 inch before charging.

[Galron]

I was corrected hive tyrants 36" without advancing.

 

PLayed my league game today. Last night I decided to try something more odd. I went with 1 technomancer with voltaic staff/enduring will + the cloak. 5 and 6 man tomb blades with particle casters and shield vanes, 3 locust destroyers, 5 immortals, and an Annihilation Barge. Like I said, an odd list. My opponent was necrons as well, 10 warriors, 2 scarab swarms, a triarch stalker,a spider, a CCB, and a canoptek stalker. I deployed with my immortals on an objective in center behind ruins, tomb blades in each corner, locusts on the left and barge near blades in the other corner.

 

He deployed across the field and got first turn. His warriors and scarabs all moved up to the center objectives. Aside from his canoptek stalker, the rest of his force moved forward to support them and do fire support. And the fire support... I made every armor save except two immortals who both simply stood back up. On my turn 1 I moved some things around. On the blade destroyer side I pushed forward and on the other corner they moved to the middleI dropped the spider down to 1 wound with my destroyers and everyone else killed all the scarabs.

 

His T2 had his warriors searching for treasure and his spider advancing to the center. His shooting killed a destroyer side Blade and put a wound on the barge. My T2 moved the barge and 5 man blades back into their corner where I solar pulsed since they were in hard cover and Blades permakilled two and the barge permakilled the other 8. I also finished off the spider and dropped the canoptek stalker to 5 wounds. My army objective was complete, kill the scoring units, now for cleanup.

 

His turn 3 had his CCB move up to 1" from the immortals. He then fired the barge and the preatorian stalker at my barge killing it and I lost a two destroyers to his C-Stalker, but RP'd one back. He assaulted my immortals killing 1 and they did a wound back for what it mattered. On my turn I brought my dead Blade back from my canoptek, left my immortals in combat because I forgot vehicles could now shoot in combat. My destroyers took out the C-Stalker and both Blade squads poured fire on the Praetorian stalker dropping it to 1 wound.

 

His turn 4 had his CCB shoot into close combat killing another 1. His stalker moved around LOS blocking terrain and tried to shoot my cryptek and failed. He got a charge off and got one hit through which was reduced to 2D which on my turn healed by 1. Speaking of my turn, I moved my immortals out of combat, I Talent for Annihilation'd his stalker and did exactly enough damage to kill it. My tomb blades opened up on the CCB and both dropped it to 1 wound.

 

His T5 had him try to shoot a tomb blade squad off an object and actually killed two, he then charged my Immortals and killed 1. My turn was easy, everything opened fire on his CCB and killed it.

 

It ended up 67(+10) to 35(+10). He will bend the knee to the Silent King, just waking up in a swamp is no excuse.  My rolls especially that first turn were lucky and once I eliminated his scoring units it was over for him. Plan worked. Now to figure out what to bring for 1k points.

 

In trying to come up with what to bring for 1k points now that we have a slightly bigger board size as well.

Mephrit Outrider 1k

Technomancer with voltaic staff, enduring will

immortals x5

Canoptek Sentinel(exile cannon centipede) 

4 scarab swarms

6man tomb blades with vanes and particle beamers

6 man tomb Blades with vanes and particle beamers

Canoptek doomstalker

Tesseract Ark two particle beamers.

 

I expect to see more vehicles hitting the table. I debated losing the technomancer for a CCB and still debate which is preferred. Most likely this will be my question until the day of. No clue who my opponent will be, I havent once faced standard marines although there are 5 in the league. I think it gives me the speed to outmanuever anyone but DA and Drukari but as far as I know, neither of them are present in the league.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

The Celestial Phaeron sent Technomancer N'toth to lead a spoiler force to take a buffer territory to possibly open up another avenue of advance in the future. A force of Blood Angels had the same idea and they met in the area around a ruined manufactorum. The goal was to take the territory with minimum casualties since this was a side advance and not the main push.

Technomancer N'toth- Enduring Will, canoptek cloak, Voltaic Staff.

2 6 man Blade squads with Vanes and particle castors 1 Immortal squad 5 man 4 scarabs

1 Tesseract Ark

1 Canoptek Stalker

1 Canoptek Tombstalker(exile cannon centipede)

 

He had Chaplain on bike with the WL trait granting a 5+++, armor indominatus.

Techmarine with I dont know what but he had a trait

1 6 Assault Intercessor Squad

1 6 man Sanguinary Guard

2 Redemptors with plasma and onslaught cannons

3 man flying guys with the 18" heavy bolters in each arm.

 

We are still playing on the small postage stamp boards so swarming a flank really doesnt mean much since we deployed on the short edges.

T1: He won first turn, moved everything up to the center building ruins on his side of the board. His Redeptors tried to shoot my Tesseract Ark and did a single wound. My T1 had both blades moving up to the side objectives in the center. I followed the right flank blades with my scarabs. My shooting had the left blades open up on his sanguinary guard killing three. On the other side I had just a peek at the chaplain's front tire. I was dumb and solar pulsed(forgetting he had a 2+ anyway.) So I talent for Annihilationed my Blades and inflicted the three mortal wounds and did enough damage that he rolled 5 ones on armor saves and failed every feel no pain. Boom, there went his lynchpin character. Stalker and Ark opened fire in the first redemptor and knocked it down to 4 wounds.

 

T2: He moved his sang guard out towards the left blades, moved his redemptors up along with his techmarine who healed 1 wound. He popped the machine spirit strat on the bracketted dread and opened fire on the blades and the ark again. He killed two blades and dropped the ark to 5 wounds. He charged the blades with his 3 remaining sang guard who overwatched killing one of them. Their attacks killed 1 more blade. My T2 had the blades retreat toward the back center. The tecnomancer moved within 6" of them. The Immortals had a shot and rapid fired the Sang Guard and them and the Technomancer killed them both. On the other side the full blade squad moved up to get the intercessors into sight. The tombstalker deep struck right into the center of the board. 9" from the damaged redemptor. He fired and dropped it to 1 wound and the ark finished it off. It exploded doing 3 mortal wounds to the tech marine and other dread but only one to the intercessors. The tombblades on the intercessors killed 3. The stalker did 5 damage to the remaining dread.

 

T3: He moved up further with his dread, moved his intercessors out to fight the tomb blades and dropped his jump pack-cessors in the back corner. He failed to damage the ark again, did one damage to the tombstalker, killed three tomblades with the jumper dudes(I made a single armor save)but RPd one back. He charged with his assault intercessors and I overwatched and killed 1. He did no damage in the assault. I killed an intercessor somehow. Surprisingly he didnt charge with his redemptor. My T3 the ark and tombstalker killed the redemptor. The four man tomblades took the left objective again and blew away the techmarine. The scarabs moved up to the lone intercessor after those blades vacated the fight. The C-Stalker fired long range and killed 2 of the jump-cessers and didn one wound on the third. Scarabs killed the lone intercessor. Next turn my stalker killed the lone guy.

 

I ended up with 75 primary, maxed Purge, maxed Take No prisoners, and dumbly got 4 points on bring it down. Still working on learning appropriate secondaries. My highest point total this league so far.

 

Post Edit: Since I am still getting use to the point system I had mis-calculated my points. I maxed primary, two secondaries and scored 4 points on a secondary I shouldnt have chosen plus had everything painted bringing me 89 points (I think).

 

This coming week, I am going to sub out the canoptek stalker, a blade, and a scarab and bring 3 heavy destroyers and see how they do. Other than that, no changes to the list. No clue who I am playing bur there are at least 4 more marines and a sisters army I havent faced yet.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

Due to his continuing success, Cryptek N'toth was sent on a high priority mission to take some key terrain. With his Canoptek Stalker down for maintenance he convinced three Heavy Destroyers that there would be living targets to destroy. They approached the target area and sensors began screaming about corrosive bacteria that could damage even their metal bodies. As soon as he read the scanner, large caliber rounds began impacting.

 

So I played against a Death Guard force for the second of the 1k points games. Actually the wife of the guy I played last week. I let him coach her a bit and I gave her ideas on what to do as well. Unfortunately you canot beat bad dice. She fired 14 shots one time and only needed a 4+ to hit due to modifiers. She hit with 2. This was her game. I deployed across the short edge with most of the prior list. Had to drop a blade and scarab plus the stalker to field 3 heavy destroyers I finished recently. My typical set up with a blade squad on each side, destroyers in the center, scarabs on the home objective, immortals on the opposite side. She had 10 pox walkers, 3 characters including the warlord in terminator armor, a blight hauler, a plagueburst crawler, 6 plague marines, and 5 terminators. The hauler and plagueburster where in each corner, pox walkers and one character on his home objective, plague marines on the line with another character and the lord and termies in deep strike.

 

T1: She went first and moved a few units forward. Her shooting was totally ineffective. I lost a single blade to the plague burster who then simply RP'd back. MyT1: I zoomed the blades up and unleashed hell. The poxwalkers were destroyed and the plague marines were knocked down to 1 guy who failed his leadership and ran at the end of the turn. The Destroyers dropped the blighthauler to 1 wound and the ark nuked the crawler down to 5 wounds. My mistake was I had my scarabs sitting on the home field objective to do Awaken Machines. Next turn I discovered home objectives dont count.

 

T2: She brought in her terminators close to the blades on the hill with one of the two mid-field objectives. She fired some more and actually killed three blades, one RPing behind the line. Also removed myself from her charge range. My T2: I mistakenly left my now 3 man blades on the hill objective and tried to move my cryptek up so he could start rebuilding them. So yeah, I discovered the scarabs couldnt do the machines secondary so I moved my immortals to the other midfield and they performed it for the rest of the game. Bigger blade squad moved up to get his terms in range but stayed at 18". Destroyers mover forward as well. Canoptek Tombstalker popped up in the middle with the Plagueburst crawler in range. My shooting this round was ok but not great. I killed the hauler and the character sitting on her objective and one terminator. I did 2 damage to her crawler.

 

T3: Her lord popped in behind her terminators. Here was where she fell apart. Her terminators fired 14 combi-bolter shots and 1 melta and hit with 2. She smited one earlier. Either way, they survived the two bolter shots. She then fired the crawlers super meltas and heavy stubbers and the mortar at the tombstalker and wiffed. The super meltas both hit and each killed a blade making her the first opponent this league to kill a Blade squad, so at least she had that. My T3 My blades moved up to the hilltop objective and talent for annihilation'd and fired point blank on the terminators killing all but one and dropping him to 1 wound. Destroyers killed the crawler. The Ark went for herlord and wiffed as did the cryptek.

 

T4: She cast smite and curse of the leper, I gloom prismed the smite and she did no wounds to the blades with leper. Her shooting was totally ineffective. She charged with the terminator at the blades who overwatched and talent for annihilationed getting the 1 mortal I needed. My T4: I cleared the board.

 

Game ended 91 to 24 including both painted army scores. Next week we start 1250 games. I have heard there are at least two players dropping Mortarion so I will be bringing a Nightbringer.

 

Tentatively my list against Tier 1 army lists:

Cryptek with enduring will and voltaic staff

2x Immortals 5man

NightBringer

6 blades with vanes and particle beamers

5 blades with vanes and particle beamers(I had 12 extra points so I tossed in 2 5++s)

Canoptek Stalker

Tesseract Ark with particle beamers

 

Alternatively, if my next game isnt against a Tier 1 army list I will bring. This shouldnt blow another newb out of the water like my 1k point lists did and lets me try out some stuff that I dont always get a chance to.

Same Technomancer

1  six man Immortal Squad

2 5 man Flayed Ones

1 6 man wraith squad

1 5 and one 6 man Tomb Blade squads with shield vane and partilcle beamers

1 10 man Praetorian Squad

1 Tesseract Ark with particle beamers

 

FINAL EDIT: I have discovered my opponent is playing sisters this afternoon and is the current undefeated league champion. I know he uses jump pack troops but thats about the extent of my knowledge of his list and even that is from seeing him play back on the first week of the league. I have decided to change my list a little

technomancer

Nightbringer

tombstalker-the cheap close combat one

immortals x5

the 5 and 6 man tomb blades

canoptek stalker

Tesseract ark

 

Should give me some counter deep strike ability and a tougher nuts to crack for his mass bolters. I have not played against sisters since 5th edition so I am not sure what they do exactly.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

The Celestial Emperor Hsian was pleased with the Technomancer's progress as a warlord and gifted him with a Shard of the Night Bringer. Intelligence says there was a penetration of the lines and was currently being held by female human warriors. He assembled his growing military force and left immediately. They reached the area of the penetration and saw a field of the tall ugly ruins of what the humans called habs. He signaled his troops forward. Alarms began going off and his Tesseract Ark pilot reported in. "Lord, sensors detect a Redemptor class dreadnought and I have movement from ruins in the south east. Readings do not appear to be the Sisters from the briefing." Aircraft screamed far over head and he could see it had unloaded jump troops from the small dots behind it. Immediately he felt he was set up, perhaps by an overlord or another Cryptek jealous of his success and position. The crude red armored Redemptor trundled into view. "Its a trap! All units engage according to protocol 13 alpha, execute immediately." He didnt have to get responses from his troops to know they were doing what they were assigned as he and an Immortal squad entered some sort of chapel and the first shots rang out across the field.

 

Suprise, the undefeated leader of the league was now playing Blood Angels. So I forget the mission, but there were six objectives, one in each deployment zone and four evenly spread out in the middle. I took Purge the Vermin, Grind them down, and Place the beacons. I am still not comfortable picking secondaries.

My force consisted of 1250 Mephrit

Technomancer with Voltaic staff, cloak, and enduring will

Night Bringer

a 5 and 6 man unit of tomblades with particle beamers and shield vanes

a 5 man immortal squad

Canoptek TOmbStalker

Canoptek DoomStalker

Tesseract Ark

 

His was

Dante

Priest dude with chief apothecary, relic that rerolls charges, I think a WLT that lets him heal twice

5 man Bladeguard

3 man bladeguard

2x5 Sang Guard with swords

Redmeptor with plasma

contemptor with twin volkite.

 

T1 I went first I moved my 5 man tomblades to 19 inches from his 5 man blades and the priest. Combined with the Nightbringer and the D-stalker they killed two bladeguard. My Ark did 6 damage to his Redemptor and my Immortals moved forwards while staying in a ruined building managed to put a wound on the redemptor as well. My other blades and Cryptek stayed out of LOS. His T1 he used Dante to buff his Contemptor and the aura to buff the redemptor. He brought one bladeguard back and healed the other one. His Redemptor rolled 1 for the number of shots, he CP rerolled and got one again which promptly missed. He fired the lesser fire and the contemptor at the immortals and killed three but one got back up.

 

T2 My turn the Nightbringer turned towards the dreadnought and Dante blob but still cast his thunderbolt on the blades in cover killing another one. My blades did some wounds. My D-Stalker failed to do anything. My Immortals did another wound on the redemptor as my T-Ark did 2 damage. I forgot the I had a tombstalker in DS. His T2 brought both sang guard in. One jumped in to relieve his 5 man blades while the other jumped down 9" from my T ark. His shooting was nasty and dropped my ark to 4 wounds. He killed one more immortal with his contemptor. He made his charge on my ark with his sang guard killing it. The other guard, took a single wound on overwatch from my 5 man blades and promptly failed both the charge and the rerolled charge.

 

T3 My turn it was time to begin the counter attack. I moved my 6 man blades to get a clear shot on the 5 in my deployment zone. My other squad moved up the board staying within 11" of his sang guard there. My T-stalker lands in the back corner to threaten the three man blades sitting on an objective and does 2 damage to one with shooting. Night Bringer gets in close to the 2dread/Dante trio. He unleases his unique power and manages to kill Dante in one shot and then does two damage to the Redemptor with Tunderbolt and fails to damage the contemptor. My 5 man squad and the canoptek kills 3 sang guard despite having a 5+++ from the priest. The 6 man talents and kills 4 of the 5 and the technomancer shows his disdain by hitting and wounding with all 4 shots from his Voltaic staff killing the last one. Night Bringer charges the Redemptor and quickly kills it and moves into base to base with the Contemptor. His T3- He is trying to salvage the mission and moves his remaining sang guard to 1" of my blades. He tried to shoot the Nightbringer with his contemptor and doesnt get a single wound through. He charges with the sang guard and I overwatch with talent for Annhilation them and kill all three(he brought one back).

 

T4- Cleanup time. I move the 6 man tombblades forward into range of the 5 man Blades. The NightBringer says whats an Objective and moves 5 inches away from the 3 man blades. My 5 man blades move 1" from his blades and within 3" of the objective he was camping. Night bringer kills one of the 3 with his powers and does 2 wounds to the other. Shooting there was inconsequential. Both Tombblade squads open up on the Solar Flared Blade squad and wipe them out despite being transhumaned. The C-Stalker kills the priest with 3 hits from its main gun. Night Bringer manages to not kill the entire squad when he transhumaned them but the caterpillar from hell manages to do so.

 

Game ends with me scoring 80 and the league champ scoring 34. He was in shock. I played in a Bolt Action event all weekend. I learned to use this quote quite a bit, "You cant beat the dice." I played against a drunk and high old guy with an average list but rolled nothing but 5s and 6s every time he fired something and repeatedly did things that make those immortals surviving look easy. My rolls on the other hand were horrible all weekend. I had an 88 super heavy anti-tank cannon that shot 5 for 23 all weekend killing a total of 7 troops and killing a dinky Italian tankette. So I know bad luck well. That Contemptor should have torn up my 5 immortals but failed to do so in 2 rounds of shooting at them despite having full hit and reroll wounds of 1. My dice were rolling ok until the last turn when they went into overdrive. It was a fun game for me, but he seemed a bit shaken by it. 

 

But holy crap, that priest. He was what every necron wished their crypteks were. Healing twice a round, bringing back a dead guy, granting a 6+++, allowing for rerolling of charges, and he had a jump pack. He easily made his points back in models brought back to life with 3 bladeguard and a sang guard. I wasnt near as worried about the sang guard once they were on the ground though as long as my Tblades were running around, despite 2+ armor, only having no transhuman, T4 and 2W hurt them with mass fire coming at them. I think that I almost bring the Tesseract Ark just to bait enemy fire. Anyone that knows me knows to hit the tomb blades first. Still tempted to do a third squad....

Edited October 20, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

Already prepping for the jump to 1500.

Still planning on using the Technomancer supreme that is extremely jealous of the Blood Angel priest that is superior in almost every way except for being alive. I still dont feel the need to bring in another HQ, I would rather have more boots on the ground. No clue who I am playing although there is still a knight list and another Morty death guard list  that I havent played yet, but could face either this weekend.

List 1: Outrider

Technomancer

5 immortals

nightbringer

2x 6 man Tomb Blade squads (although 1 model does not have shield vanes due to points)

Tesseract Ark

4 Canoptek Wraiths

3 Ophydian Destroyers

1 Doomsday Ark

3 Canoptek Scarabs

Gives me decent firepower, some nice invul save melee, a deep striking action doer, and some scarabs to either do objectives or screen for smites from Morty and the boys.  

 

List 2 Spearhead

mancer, nightbringer,  2x 6 man tomb blades with particle beamers and shield vanes, Tesseract ark. Nothing new. Then..

6 Immortals

Doomstalker

6 Locust Destroyers

-I have had good luck in the past bringing them on in reserves and pummeling a target with mass gauss cannon fire with Talent + their own strat so in theory I will hit for 15 shots and wound 6 or seven times even on Morty or a big knight. This makes my force super mobile and still gives me a lot of firepower. The problem with Morty is he cant be ignored, he moves fairly fast and his aura is stupidly ridiculous. So unlike the Nightbringer who can be ignored and outmaneuvered at a cost of a few mortal wounds a round. Morty is going around killing and weakening everything around him. 

 

So overall while I think I can deal with knights, I have a hard time figuring out what to do about Morty. I think my first list is more balanced and I am leaning towards it but it really isnt giving me much either.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

Well My opponent for today(why they started a league during football season....) is playing Death Guard. I talked to him and he is not bringing Morty and thus I am not bringing Night Bringer. He actually told me the majority of his list in his words terminators, marines, a few war machines and zombies. From this I imply that a minimum of two plagueburst crawlers, a couple of blight drones(being the second most competitive thing in the book) and a squad or two of pox walkers. 

 

So I am bringing

Technomancer as normal

5 man immortals

7x Flayed ones

Canoptek Tombstalker Deep strike or some minor anti-psychic depending on the scenario.

2 x 6 Tomb Blades with normal shield vanes and particle beamers with one shadowloom in one squad because of points

2x Annihilation Barges for bulk damage 1 firepower

Canoptek doomstalker

Tesseract Ark. 

 

Flayed ones will deep strike in and tie up a crawler while my two big gun boats shoot the other one or the hated bloat drones which hit far above their points level. My blades and barges will concentrate fire on his objective takers. 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Galron

[NTaW]

As I haven't yet gotten a game of 9th in I appreciate reading your posts here. Unfortunately on the same coin I have no advice these days to offer!

 

I look forward to more news as your league develops.

 

One question, how do you intend to tie up a Crawler with Flayed Ones? For some reason I have in my mind vehicles are much harder to slow down in combat (not to mention nailing a 9" charge before it drives away) in this edition.

[Galron]

Basically you hit it in combat and it cannot fire blast weapons and the other weapons are -1 to hit and have to fire at the unit in close combat with it. The unit also cannot be fired at from other sources. If it falls out of combat then it cant shoot at all which means its out of the game for a turn. In this case, with the disproportionate amount of damage it can cause, losing a flayer or two to its shooting each round is a worthwhile sacrifice. Plagueburster crawlers are beyond points efficient and I cant think of a more powerful vehicle in 40k. The lawnmower bloat drones are a close second.

 

Rather than just add a reply to the thread I will post what happened here.

My opponent indeed played DG. He had four characters, a captain dude in terminator armor with a nasty flame thrower, a plague caster, a dude who had blight grenades, and a dude who had a really nasty flamer thrower.

He had 3 deathshroud terminators, 7 plague marines, a plagueburst crawler, a fetid Blight drone, 20 pox walkers, 2 chaos spawn and a rhino. I am surprised at how well it did against me.

 

There was an incursion in the lines. Supreme Technomancer N'toth rapidly deployed his force to seal the penetration leaving most of his slower forces behind. His forward scouts reported from across the ruined strewn desert. "My lord, biological corrosives detected. Patterns match Adeptus forces of their Plague God. Sensors detect incoming rounds from behind the large ruins on the bluff."

 

T1: Once again, my opponent had first turn. He had his terminators and lord in deep strike. He had his grenade dude and plague marines in a rhino who drove up the right side at an advance. His spawn made a run for his left side objective. His drone and poxwalkers walked up the center going for one of the center objectives. His shooting was negligible as he couldnt roll to save his life.

 

My T1 I deployed both my Ark and my Doomstalker in my right corner. My middle consisted of my 2 Tomb Blade squads and my Technomancer. Further to the left of them were my Anni-Barges and my Immortals were on my left objective safely ensconced behind a building. So I drove my two Anni-barges forward and to the left and each fired their teslas at the spawn and their gauss cannons at his drone killing both spawn and doing a 2 wounds to the drones. MY blades drove forward as well, but one royally flopped on its shooting and only killed 9. The others who I had planned on shooting his drone with had to retarget the pox walkers killing another 9. So my technomancer had to get involved and killed the last two. My big guns managed to wiff badly and only knocked the drone down to 3 wounds.

 

His T2. He moved his drone forward, he disembarked from his rhino onto a hill. His Various terminators dropped in 9" from my lead Anni-barge. His shooting was nasty and dropped one blade squad down to one dude and did a lot of damage to my anni-barge. He charged but only made it with his lord who managed to not do much damage. My T2: I decided to shift most of my army to the right side which given my speed was easy to do. I also moved my survivor of the one tomb blade squad close to my technomancer I just wasnt ready for the absolute failure of my shooting. My T-Stalker and the flayed ones dropped down 9" from his plaguecaster and the flame thrower guy. So I figure an anni-barge should take care of the drone and mange to take 2 wounds off it. Next Anni-barge wiffed, the T-Stalker used the auto wound strat and wounded with both his shots at long range and the drone saved. Technomancer fired and only hit once and failed to wound. I forget what the big gun guys did and maybe killed a plague marine or two. My 6 man Tomb Blade squad finally split fire and did two at the drone and 4 at the marines and I Used Talent for Annihilation. I managed to hit 2 mortals and 3 wounds finally. The other four I think killed a plague marine and did a wound. My lack of success at shooting here hurt me bad. Both the Flayed ones and the Centipede failed their charges and I lost 4 of the flayed ones to the flamer dude.

 

His T3 He moved his Lord to one of the center objectives and his death shroud to the left corner objective. His rhino to the right center objective and his plague marines and grenade dude 6 inches from my Doomstalker. His shooting was once again less than stellar but got it down to 2 wounds. He failed charges on both the lord and the flamer thrower dude against one of my Anni-barges. His marines and grenade dude made their charge on the stalker and with 6s causing mortal wounds managed to kill it. My T3, my 6 man blades, now 2 blades, Tesseract ark and one Anni-barge managed to kill the remaining plague marines and the grenade dude. The other Anni-barge killed the flame thrower guy. My blades made a charge on his rhino and actually inflicted like 5 wounds. Tombstalker made the charge on his plague caster and did a couple wounds and took a couple back.

 

His T4 He mortared one of my Anni-barges to death and maintained position on his objectives. My T4: My worst Tomb Blade shooting phase ever. I used Talent for Annihilation. I wounded a T5 character twice with no mortals with 36 shots. He made his armor saves. My Immortals actually stepped into firing position and did a wound on his lord. All total he ended the turn with 3 wounds remaining. I killed his plaguecaster this fight phase too and moved into contact with his crawler with my centipede. My Particle beamers on the tesseract ark killed his rhino. I made a poor movement choice on my remaining annibarge.

 

His T5: He made a hail Mary play and tried get his terminators to bodyguard distance of his lord, he needed a 4 on the advance but rolled a 1 and rerolled into a 2. He then used the lords super flamer thrower to kill the Annibarge. My T5: Everyone moved up and I managed to do two wounds with my Immortals and did a last wound with my technomancer. My 6 man blades tried to fire on his distant terminators but only 3 were in range. What the hell, popped talent for annihilation. I inflicted all three mortals and somehow managed 9 wounds which killed another one that was game.

 

Super close game, I managed to pull a win, 81 to 74 I did not max out my primaries. Wow it was a close game, he was #2 in the league and my score wasnt good enough to knock him out of it. I did blow his undefeated record.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

OK, 1500 points and my opponent is knights. No clue what he is bringing but a knight is a knight and its a short list.

So I am bringing in a Mephrit Spear head.

Technomancer as usual to bring back tomb blades. I think next point upgrade I might get a real HQ.

2 Immortal squads- Planning on keeping them out of LOS and doing retrieve oct data.

Night Bringer- with no psyker powers to worry about, he will charge up the middle at the baddest knight he has.

5 flayed ones- deep strike in later and do retrieve Oct data.

2 squads of 5 tombblades- one with all part beamers, shield vanes, and a shadowloom. The other with all looms and 3 with shield vanes. Came down to knights have a bunch of high AP weapons so I figured the 5++ would help a lot here. Their purpose is to swarm the mini-knights in armor saves along with Talent for Annihilation.

The the big guns,

Doom Stalker

Tesseract ark

3 Heavy Destroyers-I am going to try and play angles here as well as try and tease out his rotate Ion shields strat before they fire on their target.

 

I am still only #4 despite having beaten the #1 and #2 players in the league and making the #2 drop to #3, But we are all within 60 points. I am 2 points from #3, 40 odd from #2 and 60 from #1. One or two good games can get me up there.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

1500 points. "Imperial Walkers in sector 4! Imperial Walkers in sector 4! Rapid response units scramble!" Rubble and debris rained down around from the husks of the ruined human city. Each thundering step from the mighty warmachines made the ground tremble appreciably on seismic detectors. Two large war machines backed up by four of their smaller brethren moved from ruin to ruin. Technomancer N'Toth watched from a hiding spot as he relayed commands to his heavy gun boats and directed his outflanking forces. The human warmachines walked directly into his fatal funnel. Engage!"

 

This game was rough. I ended up at the last minute changing my list around to bring a doomsday ark and combined my Tomb Blades into a 9 man unit while dropping the doomstalker. Game was Vital terrain and had one objective in each deployment zone and two equidistant in the middle. Played short end to short end. He fielded A Preceptor and a Crusader, a helverin, 2 of the Armingers, and the mini-knight with the lightning locks. His Preceptor had a 2+ save, his warlord trait was a 4++ and he carried a relic gatling gun.

 

Most of his stuff was deployed behind terrain but the Crusader was on the objective in his deployment zone in plain sight. I gambled on my Quantum Shielding holding the line and placed both arks dead center. The Heavy Destroyers were behind obscuring terrain as were both Immortal squads, one in each quarter. My 9 man blades were in reserve as were my flayed ones. Night Bringer was front and center and Technomancer was behind a building close to the T-Ark.

 

I got first turn... Nightbringer was out of range despite moving up. I should have checked, this was a mistake on my part and I should have advanced him. Doomsday ark got fired and rolled 1 shot, I cp rerolled into 2 shots. No damage. T-ark fires on the Crusader and rolls 1 shot and misses. Heavy Destroyers flew on top of the building and fired on the Crusader rolling 2 2s and the third hit so I did the auto wound strat. I inflicted 8 damage on the Crusader. One Immortal Squad did retrieve data. His T1: He moved stuff forward. His shooting was predictably nasty. Did 3 damage to Nightbringer, killed two heavy destroyers, did heavy damage on both arks.

 

T2: I ditched my dice after not making a single armor or Invul save the entire round. My opponent had a giant bag of dice he let me borrow. I moved my surviving Heavy destroyer back behind the building where I figured he would be safe. The Tark being the most heavily damaged healed 1 point from living metal, and ....1 point from the technomancer. My Blades came in the far corner behind his Helverin. My other immortal squad did retrieve in their corner. Night Bringer went after an Arminger and did significant Mortal Wound damage. Shooting was almost the repeat of last turn. Both arks managed to drop the other Arminger which was in relatively close range, to 8 wounds. My blades did Talent for Annihilation and fired 54 shots into the Helverin and dropped it to 2 wounds. They charged and failed to hurt it. Night Bringer Charged the Arminger and killed it but then took 2 damage from him auto-exploding on a 4+. His T2 The Helverin backed out of combat, moved his wounded Arminger 5 inches from my doomsday ark. His Preceptor moved to the center of the board. His lightning lock dude sped around the backfield to get the Tombblades in sight. His shooting killed the last Heavy Destroyer since it wasnt back far enough. He killed a single tomb blade and did 3 more damage to the NightBringer leaving him on 1. He charged my Doomsday ark with his Arminger, I overwatched. Rolled 1 for shots with the main gun and didnt hit. My Flayer Array on the other hand hit 12 times and wounded 7 of those(This was the weirdest fluke of the game)and he failed all of his armor saves leaving it on 2 wounds and he did 3 damage to the D-Ark dropping it to 1 wound remaining.

 

My T3: I moved my Tomb Blades into the building 5" from the Crusader. My flayers deep struck in behind the blades and did Retrieve Oct data. My Doomsday ark fell back behind the building putting it out of sight. My immortals on that side moved into the building placing the Arminger in close range. I healed a total of 2 damage on the T-ark again. Nightbringer moved to put the Crusader as the closest model and promptly did enough mortal wounds to drop it to 9 wounds. My Tombblades did Talent for Annihilation and did the other 9 exactly to the Crusader despite him rerolling an armor save and having the strat to FNP mortals. The Immortals began their game of most underated unit in the game and inflicted 3 damage to the Arminger killing it. The T-ark once again rolled 1 on number of shots and did nothing to the Helverin which because of his Household, had been recovering damage and was up to 4 at the start of his round. My Night Bringer charged his Preceptor and was cut down by overwatch. His T3: He moved his lightning lock mini-knight to the objective on his end of the board. His preceptor moved wholly into one of my quarters. His shooting in total killed a tomb blade and got the T-ark down to 1 wound remaining.

 

My T4: Healed 3 wounds on the T-ark bringing it back into the middle bracket. Tomb Blades swooped down on the LIghtning Lock guy. The Doomsday ark peeked out from around a building at the Preceptor. Flayed ones moved as close as they could to the damaged Helverin. My shooting dropped the Lightning lock mini-knight down to 1 wound. My Immortals and only my immortals dropped his preceptor to 17 wounds as the arks failed to do much.Flayed ones charged the Helverin and killed it. Tombblades locked up the lightning lock mini-knight and failed to wound it. Both units held the objectives though. His T4 he fired a bunch of stuff from his preceptor and really didnt do anything of note besides kncking my D-ark back down to the bottom bracket. He did however get a charge off on the flayed ones and killed them with ease. He spent a CP to have his lightning lock dude act like it was on full health and his shooting in close combat killed 3 blades. Close combat there was a wash however.

 

My T5: Time to go for broke, despite all my big guns being broke. Moved my d-ark closer so I could get the flayers in rapid fire range. COmbined fire from everything managed to kill the Preceptor. I finally started rolling 6s for number of shots and he didnt have the CP to rotate ion shields. The lightning lock guy on his turn rolled poorly despite once again being on top profile and failed to kill any TBs.

 

Despite my horrific shooting, I somehow still scored 74 to his 38. I think I did the primaries wrong the last two rounds and should have had 15s but only counted 10. Not sure. I really didnt think I won it even until he told me his score and I looked at my tally sheet. I know the league leader only scored 54 points this week so I did a nice jump for catch up. None of us have a clue what the actual prize for winning is.Although the league leader is jumping back and forth between Sisters and Blood Angels depending on what he is facing after he sees the list. Knight guy was telling me he showed him his list and then BA guy started pulling out out of place units. Yeah I tailored to no real effect to play knights. This guy is waiting to see the list before he pulls stuff out. Oh well. I think I still have a Salamander army to play with 3 or 4 weeks left,  so that will be annoying since most of my damage comes through from -1ap. Might swap out my particle beamers for gauss. I might bring my Annihilation barges back out, they are fun to pump out firepower and have Quantum shielding to screw with his mass meltas.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Galron

[Prot]

Anni barges are definitely fun.... I just find eventually as points get higher you really need some stronger firepower.

 

I am contemplating Tomb Blades myself which I actually have not been tempted to use in 9th but it's one of the last units I haven't explored a ton. The thing I keep thinking is that we play a fairly competitive scene here and our tables see a lot of ruins. For that reason I can't fathom using the Particle Beamer as much as you do, but it seems to be working for you. 

 

I haven't built mine, but I'm thinking 5 x Gauss w/Shieldvanes. 

 

I'm enjoying reading about your progression. Keep up the great reports!

[Galron]

We have a lot of ruins too. Really helps the blades actually as they can move in a way to limit visibility. Since they are ruins then they have their natural -1 to be shot and then get the bonus of +1 to their armor if someone does shoot them if they are in it. That and with two wounds, its a lot easier to get RP on them. The sheer volume of fire they can pour down on a target is devastating if you include Talent for Annihilation. I did really enjoy fielding 9 of them instead of my usual 6. 54 shots was funny and I never got less than 12 wounds vs any of the knights.

 

I think though, if I go against salamaders I might switch things up and field the 9 with gauss blasters as well and try and use the 6s to hit are auto wounding.

 

My next list I think if not playing against a T2+ army will  be

technomancer

2 x5 immortals

2 x 5 flayed ones

4 scarab swarms

Tomb Sentinel(big gun centipede)

6 Wraiths

9 Tomb Blades with shield vanes and gauss blasters

5 Locust Destroyers (probably will reserve them)

Tesseract Ark.

 

Should provide for a heavy shooting force with a lot of dakka, plus a little close combat to round things out.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Galron

[Miek]

I really like your list, looks super fun. I tend to neglect tomb blades because I wouldn't use them for scoring but they definitely trade well and disrupt the opponent's plans.

 

How do you generally use the centipedes? Do you try to make the charge after deep strike, or try to pop somewhere and take the attention away from other units, or something else? Whenever I contemplate using one I mostly imagine it popping up, shooting, failing its charge and then getting killed easily in the other player's turn.

[Prot]

Out of curiosity why not Gauss on the tomb blades? 4 shots a piece at decent range and that juicy AP -2. 

[Galron]

I play Mephrit, so my 18" range gets extended to 21" and with a 14" movement its no issue getting to or staying in range, plus lately most of my targets have annoying 4++ saves anyway so the -1 is enough typically to drop them to a 3+ or 4+. With the mass volume of fire at 6 per dude no matter what my range is, the key is forcing saves. Every blue moon it backfires like it did that game vs DG  but then again, even with Gauss, I still only would have wounded twice against his lord IF i hit the same number of times. It also plays into Talent for Annihilation. Making more hits usually means getting all three 6s which is key. During my game with knights, every time my 9 blade squad fired at a knight, I knocked them down to 1 or 2 wounds in a single volley. I dont think gauss would have had that effect. Also gauss is 5 points each so depending on how many squads I run, thats 45 or 60 points which is another scarab swarm. To me, the two main keys of 9th are mobility and volume of fire which the Blades do extremely well in both catagories. Just dont get them into hand to hand except as a last resort. 

 

I play my Caterpillars from hell(Centipedes) as a utility unit. Deep striking them is great if I need it. The only thing they are good at is really denying psyker abilities. But they are excellent support units. Run them alongside Nightbringer to protect him from a smite and act as back up in hand to hand. The exile version makes a decent surprise gunboat to take on rear line enemy gunboats and then try to tie them up in combat. I dont remember actually making any deep strike turn charges but thems the breaks. I have heard them compared to hexmark destroyers in their usage. I can see it but at he same time, I think the caterpillars are a slight bit tougher and I would use them for different roles depending on my opponent. Against death guard I would take a tomb stalker or tomb sentinel just for the anti-psyker and hand to hand abilities. They are much much better for tying up plagueburst crawlers and Hive guard than anything else we have. I dont think I have lost one of my caterpillars yet this league. I miss the old days when you could field them 1-3 per slot and would totally bring three. 

 

So apparently this week my opponent is another necron player I didnt know the league had. He is warrior spamming.  Therefore I am going to just spam D1 mobile shooting platforms. Going back to my original Tomb Blade builds with two squads with particle beamers, 2 annihilation barges, 5 destroyers, a Doomsday ark, 3 heavy destroyers with the multi-shot weapons(figured I would try them out).  Basically my base list for my 2k end game general list with a few extras here and there to see how I like them. The only things I am missing from my 2k list at this point are a command barge and the Nightbringer and I dont see either as important yet.

[Galron]

The wind swept the desert plain of this long abandoned planet. Exalted Technomancer N'toth stood resplendent before his elite legion. His golden canoptek cloak made up of thousands of tiny gold scarabs fluttered artificially in the wind. His Voltaic staff crackled with power. Behind him his serried force of hovering tomb blades floated slightly up and down in wind, the immortals standing silent at port arms, whether they were silently continuing the eons-long argument of tesla vs gauss over their internal network was undiscernible. A doomsday ark hovered menacingly behind his troops. An Annihilation barge hovered beside it silently. Less orderly was a swarm of locust destroyers grumbling to themselves off to the side eagerly racking their weapons. A second squad of Heavy Destroyers powered their weapons but grumbled about wasted negotiations. All had polished their deep jade armor carapaces to a gleaming shine reflecting the light of the harsh sun, the gold details shining almost silver. Directly behind N'toth floated the leader of this destroyer band, unhappily attached to his command. The bulky Locust Lord floated back and forth, silently brooding, his black bladed scythe absorbing all the light of the sun striking it making it appear to be a bladed black hole.

 

Across the field was his target, a newly risen dynasty, not even capable of fielding the more complicated equipment and troops of the Necron race. A legion of bare 45 dilapidated warriors stood behind their Pharon. Two large tomb spiders, typically used more for heavy maintenance of the stasis tombs had been brought to bare. Several swarms of scarabs, backbone of the stasis tombs were visible in between the blocks of warriors, as were two other crypteks. Oddly a Triarch Stalker stood sentinel over the force, typically the direct servants of the Silent King. This should be already arranged, he thought to himself, maybe he was sent here as a formality.

 

He stepped forward and amplified his voice "Dynasty of Ben'Doh, the Silent King and the Celestial Emperor Hsain bids you welcome."

 

A deep voice cracking with age replies back over the field, "Why do you trespass on my world?" 

 

The Destroyer Lord behind him growled, a sound echoed by his band. Himself, taken aback by the response to his greeting from what he had been informed was a prearranged agreement, "I come on behalf of the Celestial Emperor and the Silent King to assure that your Dynasty will bend the knee and pledge fealty to the Silent King and full cooperation with his plans. What say you?"

 

The Pharon stared with green glowing eyes waved his own relic scythe in the air forward, "We say Nay!" and the legion of warriors marched forward and the scarabs took flight in large clouds as if they were flocks of malignant swallows.

 

Wow, this game. I am not going to do a write up for the battle report on this. It would be T1: shot 20+ warriors, 18 got back up. T2: Shot 20+ warriors, 18 got back up. I do not joke. At one point I literally killed 12 warriors with no armor save, 10 got back up purely on rez protocols and zero support. That and my dice were horrific. At one point I went to see if the store had another block of 36 dice, it was that bad. Not sure what I have done to piss of the dice gods lately. 

I brought with the new rules that came out yesterday:

Technomancer as usual

Locust Lord with Veil of Darkness and warp scythe

2 5 man immortals

6 flayed ones

2 5 man tomb blades with gauss blasters and shield vanes

5 Locust destroyers

3 heavy destroyers with the 3d3 shot weapons

1 Annihilation Barge

1 Doomsday Ark (Averaging 2 shots a turn with the big gun)

 

He brought using the 6" free move and all units Objective secure traits

Overlord with hand of the pharon and the Voidreaper relic

2 technomancers, 1 with cloak and the other with Control Nodes

4 Murder buckets(HOLY CRAP! 40 points for these guys is insane)

3 squads of 15 warriors with reapers

2 7 base scarab swarms

2 Tomb Spiders

Triarch Stalker

 

I took Take no Prisoners and scored 212 wounds. I made zero reanimations on my end, but lost a single tomb blade, the locust lord and his 5 destroyers, and 1 immortal. He had both tomb spiders, a technomancer with control node and 2 murder buckets left at the end of turn 5. I would have wiped him in a turn 6. Literally despite almost all of my force being in rapid fire range, killed 2 warriors on my first shooting phase. He didnt need to take armor saves. My Locust Lord was my only high point having killed in melee both his overlord and one of his technomancers. The locust destroyers did NOTHING except a couple wounds on the stalker and thats with both the lord buff and the reroll wounds strat. The only thing I think I should have done different on afterthought was shoot the spiders instead. I was not expecting them to be as nasty as they were and mistakingly thought the stalker was more of a threat. I am used to my centipedes and thought the spiders were similar, couldnt have been more wrong. His scarabs kept jumping in and tying units up, and once again he kept making Rez rolls for them successfully, I kill three and he brings two back, over and over. The last round of the game, my dice finally decide to show up and I clear the last two squads of warriors although it still takes most of my army which is still intact to do so.

 

He asked why I wasnt more aggressive with my units. What am I going to do, engage a warrior blob with reapers that is objective secure with tomb blades? I can already hover at 17" and get rapid fire and not allow saves. I am not going to be able to take an objective from him and getting closer just makes brings his weapons into range. I think if both out rolls were more average, the game would have been very different.

 

He ended up with 96 points and I had 54. Not a catastrophe but not putting me into the top 3 either I think.

 

Overall, with horrific dice rolls on my end, flat out amazing rolls on his, with an army designed to quickly kill objective secure units and then clean up the rest, it doesnt work against an army where everything he has is objective secure and doesnt want to die. 212 wounds killed.

 

I did like the veiling the destroyers though, I think if my rolls would have been somewhat better it would have accomplished something. I think I am going to try a Novokh destroyer and melee heavy list next time. Veiling a Skorpekh unit with a Skorpekh lord with the reroll charge aura) while deep striking Ophyidians and flayed ones on the same turn in the same area has some promise. Then cruise up the board with a CCB, the tomb blades with gauss with heavy destroyers in the back field with the big guns will help.

 

Hmm been bouncing around some ideas. At 2k I think I might try something a bit different and out of my comfort zone:

2 patrols Novokh(just combining them for short hand, I hate reading copy pasted battlescribe lists)

 

Skopekh Lord with the reroll charge trait+ Veil of Darkness

CCB warlord with Eternal Madness, the Bloodscythe

Technomancer with cloak and Hyperdermal Ablator (runs up the board with the wraiths)

 

2 x5 Immortals

 

Nightbringer

Flayed Ones x5

Cryptothralls

5x Skorpekh Destroyers

 

Tomb Blades x5 with particle beamers (they are the escort to the CCB and will benefit from My Will be done until he gets to the fight)

5 Wraiths

3 Scarabs(Escort to the Night Bringer to take smites)

3x Ophydian Destroyers

 

3 Heavy Destroyers

Doomsday Ark

 

I kind of wanted to fit in an Annihilation barge or two for clearing chaff but really need the heavier firepower if I run into a vehicle heavy list. I think the Immortals will be left alone with such a massive amount of threats the opponent will want to kill before they hit their lines and for once I get to use command protocols lol.  Am reading it right that a CCB with a Blood Scythe get 12 attacks or is it just 6?

Edited November 12, 2021 by Galron

[Galron]

Scanning the human communications indicated that a mighty warrior was present in a war torn area of plains. The green and gold armored host glittered in the bright sun as it silently moved into the area from the intelligence. The light hot breeze lifted a light haze of yellow dust. "Targets sighted at 5 degree to the axis of advance." Commed one of his advance Immortal squads entering the outskirts of some ancient ruins.

 

The Celestial Emperor grinned in his permanent gold grimace as he turned his head to magnify the the now visible green forms moving from cover to cover. His former chief Technomancer had been demoted from his lofty position due to his failure to bring an errant Dynasty into line with the Silent King's plans. The loss of the resources of the small dynasty set his own plans back as he had been counting on using his own tithe of treasure to improve his own forces. Upon word of a supposedly mighty human hero bravely taking to the field, he decided to show the interloper the error of his ways, and left his underground tomb with a large chunk of his personal host, the Jade Legion. Arrayed beside him grumbled three legged Skorpeph Destroyers and their lord, Krilock. N'toth in his reduced ranking organized a flight of his Wraiths and a swarm of scarabs. He also had brought thralls who were already scuttling forward to check various piles of scrap for useful salvage. His personal bodyguard were a team of Tomb Blades who with a thought, charged their particle beamers in anticipation of the fight.

 

"Warning!Incom---" His command barge tried to warn him as a round from a sniper rifle impacted his skull, jerking it to the side. He recovered and turned his baleful gaze to the squad of snipers trying desperately but failing to blend in with their surroundings. He raised his glowing red scythe and the legion began its inexorable march forward."

 

So the first game of 1750. This time made full use of the new Core changes.

I had  1750, double patrol, Novokh

CCB with Blood Scythe, the Novokh trait

Skorpekh Lord VoD, and the Implacable Conquorer Trait(reroll charges)

Technomancer cloak

2x5 Immortals

Nightbringer

5 Skorpekhs

Crytothralls

Tombblades x5 with particle beamers

5 Wraiths

Ophydian Destroyers

4 Scarab bases

3 Heavy Destroyers

 

He played Salamanders

That primaris named character

Terminator chaplain

3 intercessor squads 7 dudes each

5 Aggressors with flamers

1 Dual Volkite Contemptor

1 Redemptor

1 Eliminator squad

1 Eradicator squad in reserve

1 Repulsor

 

The board was another diagonal deployment with 4 objectives in a line down the diagonal between the zones and then 2 perpendicular to that line 18" from the center. Also you have to control 2 objectives to get 5 points, 3 for 10, and more than the opponents was normal. I deployed in a big mob for the most part. I had the murder buckets sitting out of LOS on my home objective, the two immortal squads, one of which who lived up to the name on the far left behind a building. I had the scarabs on my far right. He was spread out behind a LOS blocking piece of terrain on his side not quite in the middle of the board with the eliminators relatively close on my right and a squad of intercessors along his deployment line backing them up.

 

T1: He got the first turn and he started moving out. He RoDded with the far right intercessors and did some kind of move with his eliminators that got them onto terrain for a move shoot move effect. He apparently didnt know about the 3 wound thing on the Nightbringer and fired his Contemptor at it doing 3 mortals and wasting a butt load of good hits on it. His repulsor fired up the wraiths and skorpekhs killing 2 wraiths and a skorpekh. His eliminators did 2 damage to my CCB. My T1: I healed all the damage to my CCB between the living metal and the technomancer. Brought back a wraith. The wraiths got Will be done. Everyone moved forward keeping the tomb blade "bodyguards" closely tucked into the CCB. My Nightbringer did 8 mortals to the Repulsor and an Immortal managed 1 wound. One of my heavy destroyers got a shot through his invul and did 9 damage. I think I did a damage to the aggressors withthe skorpekh lord. I killed two intercessors in the far squad holding his home objective. My scarabs moved up within 5 inches of his eliminators. In the charge phase the scarabs got into the eliminators on the far right objective killing one. His aggressors did some kind of overwatch strat where they get to fire for something else and then intervene 2d6" and he spent CP on that and the 4+s to wound do mortals strat. He did three wounds and wasted all the other shots. He unfortunately wiffed the charge as I kind wanted to hit them with the night bringer. Nightbringer then took down the Repulsor with extreme prejudice. My wriaths failed their charge, twice.

 

His T2: He moved the intercessors on the right down towards the objective and fell back with his eliminators. The Aggressors and Argax(?) surrounded the NightBringer. His squads pushed back overall except his Redmeptor which moved forward towards the far left corner(the one with the two immortal squads). His eradicators walked on from my deployment zone. He flamed my wraiths and took 2 down, one of which came back. He gunned down 1 scarabs on the right. I think the redemptor killed 3 immortals but 1 got back up. He was already halfway through his assault phase when he remembered his Eradicators. I let him pay a CP and go back and shoot them and they wiped my H. Destroyers. Predicably he charged Night Bringer and he finally died to a pile of power fists and then exploded killing an aggressor and doing a damage to another one. Also did 3 damage to Argax. His charge on the scarabs killed 1 and brought another to 1 wound left they actually killed one back. My T2: brought back another wraith. My will be doned my wraiths again. I managed to get my wraiths behind his front line and inches from his intercessors holding an objective. The CCB moved right up next to his chaplain and the objective intercessors. The other intercessors were on the chaplain's left side. My tomb Blades moved over to back up the scarabs and stopped about 4 inches away. The scarabs fell back. My Ophidians popped up 9" from the Eradicators but on the other side of LOS blocking terrain. tomb Blades killed several intercessors and actually did a wound on the charge. Skorpekh lord shot another intercessor from the 7 man squad to the left of the chaplain. My immortals together killed an aggressor and did a damage or two to another one. Tomb Blades charged the intercessors and I think killed a damaged one with a wound taken in return. Skopekh Lord charged the intercessors and the chaplain and succeeded and killed the chaplain like it was nothing. The Celestial Emperor wiped every member of the objective intercessor squad before the wraiths even got a chance to fight. The three Skorpekhs wiped the other squad. The Ophidians made their charge and wiped the eradicators.

 

His T3: He kept moving forward with his redemptor, aggressors and Argax. The aggressors moved closer to my murder buckets and flamed the three man immortal squad off the board. The Redemptor fired everything except its big plasma cannon at the immortals and killed 4, all of whom stood back up. The plasma fired at the technomancer who was left behind in the open when everyone went charging in and poor N'toth died and was ported back to the tomb for repairs. The aggressors got a lucky charge off on the murderbuckets and wiped them. The redemptor charged the immortals and killed three, two got back up and put a wound on him. My T3: Skorpekhs went charging over to back up the tomb blades who then moved out of combat over to the second objective. Wraiths did a 13" move along with an advancing Skorpekh lord towards Argax. CCB made it close. Ophidians jumped into deep strike with their strat. CCB fired on Argax and killed him blunting the whole reason I was moving that direction, I thought he had more wounds than that). Skorpekhs double charged both the last three intercessors on the board and the eradicators and wiped both out. Immortals didnt cause any damage but managed to survive another round.

 

His T4: He didnt do much as everything was out of aggressor range and he tried to do an action on that objectives. The Redemptor got some good hits in and my immortals sitting on that objective went down to one last one. My T4 in a nutshell: CCB moved up to an objective and fired on the aggressors killing 2. The tomb blades inflicted 10+ wounds on the last aggressor and he just pulled it. Ophidians dropped on an objective and RoDded. Wraiths easily made their charge on the Redemptor and he just pulled it too.

 

Things I should have done different:

1. Didnt use the strat that lets me do reanimations twice to bring back both a skorpehk and wraith on turn 1 and 2.

2: In this formation Hand of the Pharon would have been useful and I will give it a try next time.

3: Forgot to use the reanimation strat for characters to try and save the techno DJ.

4. Forgot My will be done is for one unit and gives the +1 to attack rolls BUT the +1" movement is an aura now instead of part of My will be done

5. Totally missed the part where Nightbringer had Living Metal and could regenerate

6. Also missed that there was a strat that gives a random power to a C'tan for an extra try at mortals.

Was a fun game. I might have made it back into the top 3 depending on how one of the death guard players did. Currently there are 2 Death Guard and a Blood Angel player in the top three. Game ended with me at 77 and him at 34. Those bloody aggressors and their insane overwatch. Everything did pretty much what I expected.

 

My game tonight is I think against another Salamander player I just found out about. I am just bringing the same list and this time maybe I wont make the same mistakes. I know he has assault terminators and a redemptor plus the ubiquitous flamer aggressors. Stay tuned for the this and then I have a surprise guest for the final game of the league next week. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Galron