Tournament Report -- 09SEP2023

[Iron Father Ferrum]

So here's another tourney report for you.  Phew, that was a slog and an absolute ing waste of my time, money, and bolt shells.  Let me explain.

 

Today, I ran the following list and placed 7th out of 12 with one win and two losses.  I really wanted to play my Iron Hands instead if I'm completely honest, but I was convinced to stick with my Chaos since that's what I've mained so far in 10th and I'm most familiar with its rules and units.  Oddly enough, my Chaos actually has more defensive abilities than my Iron Hands, but my Hands are better against armor . . .which is what I needed.  Sigh.

 

- Terminator Sorcerer (Warlord) with 5x Terminators (Slaanesh) in deep strike

- Exalted Champion with 10x Chosen (Khorne) in a Land Raider (Nurgle)

- Sorcerer with 10x Legionaries (Tzeentch) in a Rhino (Nurgle)

- Master of Possessions with 10x Possessed (Undivided)

- Havocs with lascannons (Nurgle)

- Helbrute with lascannons (Nurgle)

- 10x Cultists (Nurgle)

- Noctilith Crown (Nurgle)

 

Game One: Imperial Knights (Loss, 71-41)

 

Summary: If you reference my prior report on 12AUG2023, you may remember I played Knights in my first round then too.  Same guy, slightly different army.  He still had a mass of Armigers and a Vindicare, but this time swapped his two big boys for a Porphyrion.  He also had Inquisitor Karamzov and two groups of Inquisitorial Henchmen.  The general trend of the game was "Chaos Marines leap across the midfield, seize objectives, then get blasted."  I was actually ahead on points going into Turn 3, but it was a rough start -- bad dice (this is going to be a theme) means that all my gunfire only killed one and crippled one Armiger on my first turn.  The Porphyrion then steps out, and despite my best efforts, promptly blasts the Crown to smithereens while the bracketed warglaive got himself a toehold inside the 12" "no shooty" effect of Dark Obscuration, plugged the Land Raider with his thermal spear, then charged and finished it with his chainsword.  The Vindicare of course sniped out my MoP as soon as possible, but it didn't stop the Possessed ripping up one flank with a little help from the Legionaries.  My Havocs kept rolling low damage as usual; the one chance they had to do something amazing was an Overwatch against Karamazov as he ran onto an objective.  I rolled three sixes which Sustained into six hits and four wounds. . . and he promptly saved all four hits.  Disappointing.  By the end of the game, I was down to just the Legionaries and Sorcerer, while only killing three Warglaives.

 

Lessons Learned: Most of the army ran like clockwork mechanically, even if the dice weren't behaving.  Chosen killed a Knight in combat, Possessed killed a Knight in combat, the Legionaries held my flank for five turns. . . the only disappointing element was the new additions, the Terminator drop squad.  Granted, they didn't have exactly good targets, but I figured if I could get them into combat with Sustained Hits on chain & power fists they could at least account for something.  Nope.  Failed their charge on the drop even with a reroll and got slaughtered by mass Helverin autocannon fire.  My opponent was wise to my tricks from last time and worked around some of them.  I'll admit that while a disappointing finish, it wasn't unexpected -- I consider this opponent a friend and he's very good.

 

 

Game Two: Chaos Knights (Win, 100-38)

 

Summary: Having an 0-2 record in 10th Edition against Imperial Knights, I wasn't too sanguine fighting a Tyrant, Stalker, two Brigands, two Huntsmen, an Executioner, a unit of Nurglings, and Shalaxi Helbane.  Turns out, I needn't have worried too much.  My opponent started off without much luck; due to terrain and objective layout, most of the War Dogs had to Advance and thus weren't able to shoot.  What shooting he did get off resulted in the drum total of three wounds getting knocked off the Noctilith Crown.  My first turn was the exact opposite.  My shooting killed two War Dogs; the Possessed killed a third and the Chosen dragged down a fourth (the Legionaries alone -- and just their shooting -- left one War Dog on 1 wound.  Not bad for a bunch of bolters!)  After that, I coasted a bit.  About half the Possessed were killed as they advanced on the Tyrant and Shalaxi murdered what was left of the Chosen (though they pulled down about half its wounds thanks to Eternal Hate), but at the end of Round Three the only thing left of the Knight army was the Nurglings cowering behind a ruin in the corner.

 

Lessons Learned: Once again, the Terminator drop did Jack and -- and Jack left town.  Combi-weapons aren't worth much if you don't have infantry targets to shoot at, and they failed their charge even with the free reroll from the Sorcerer again.  It didn't have much effect on the outcome, but that was a very disappointing failure.  With the bad out of the way, let's look at the good.  The Legionaries once again pulled more than their weight, earning me CPs and laying down such a rain of fire that my opponent needed a bucket to catch the lead.  The more I play Legionaries, the more I like them.  I'm prepping three more squads -- one equipped to capitalize on each Mark -- but that's a project for the future.  The Helbrute's aura is still amazing, and I'm going to find space in the army for at least one more; I try to keep him positioned between the Land Raider and the Havocs so both benefit and all get the Crown's invulnerable save and it seems to work pretty well.  Lascannons go fwash.  It took the Possessed longer than I thought it would to bring down the Tyrant, but they managed it and are still probably the fastest, scariest hammer I have ever run in a 40K army.

 

 

Game Three: Death Guard (Loss, 96-76)

 

Summary: I'm not going to cast aspersions. . . okay, I'll cast a few aspersions.  My opponent was a very fast talker.  He was throwing out abilities and numbers left and right at a stupendous pace and anytime I tried to ask for clarification or questioned an effect, his response was something along the lines of "That's how it works!  You can look it up if you want but I'm going to keep doing X."  I can't say he was cheating but I honestly couldn't tell because I didn't catch half what he said or did because he was just blowing through everything so fast!  It was not a fun game and I left the store with a sour taste in my mouth over his shenanigans.  In any case, he ran Mortarian, Typhus, two PBCs, three Blight Crawlers, two Bloat Drones, Deathshrouds, a Helbrute, a Defiler, and a Land Raider.  Oh, a unit of Cultists.  Man oh man, my dice turned to straight garbage.  I swapped them out twice to no effect.  My Possessed carved out the middle of his army, ticking the last of the life from the Land Raider, surviving the return from Typhus and his bodyguard, then slapping back hard.  The MoP got to use the anti-psyker ability on his staff for the first time so that was nice.  They'd kill the Helbrute too before Mortarian double-backed and removed them.  My Legionaries finally let me down, doing only mediocre damage to the Defiler and rolling garbage on their saves -- at one point, I rolled four 1s and 2s on AP1 D2 attacks -- forcing me to commit the Terminators to that flank.  The Defiler was on three wounds -- just three -- and rerolling a 9" charge is about 50/50 odds to land.  I didn't get it Game One.  I didn't get it Game Two.  Game Three's the kicker, right?  Wrong.  They got the Defiler the subsequent turn, but not before I lost the objective.  Meanwhile the Helbrute died to concentrated fire (one turn of his aura was enough to trigger an instant "kill that thing!" decision) and, surprisingly, the Havocs became a priority target after that.  My Chosen tried to shore up my center and right, and accounted for a Bloat Drone and half of a PBC, but Mortarian swung back over to kill them.  I flopped the Eternal Hate rolls for my power fists and ended up only putting six wounds on Morty while the Land Raider was busy failing all of its Invulnerable saves to the Blight Hauler multimeltas.  We only finished three rounds and I wanted to just call it, but my opponent started a "talk-it-through" of the last two rounds but again, he was going a mile a minute and assuming results of moves and attacks in very bad faith.  I'd already had enough of his crap so I just let him run his mouth and tally up points.  We were close to being tied when the dice went down and I think I was even up a little bit so I should have just told him to piss off but again, frankly, his demeanor the entire game had just put me off so much I just.  Didn't.  Care.  So of course he tallies himself up a whole bunch of extra VPs for a 20-point win.  Whatever.

 

Lessons Learned: I've run the Sorcerer-Legionary package now in six tournament and three casual games, and in nine events this is the first time their performance has been disappointing in any way -- but again, that what the dice's fault.  They failed to roll successfully on the Eye of Tzeentch, they busted saves, they were missing shots, etc.  Such is life, and the overwhelming evidence is that the package works well.  The Terminators on the other hand are absolutely zero-for-three in my book and are getting pulled.  I figure I can fit in more Havocs and/or a second Helbrute instead.  They failed their drop-charge every time, and while they did kill the Defiler it only had three wounds left.  The subsequent turn they charged into a Blight Hauler and couldn't even kill that thing in one round!  The Possessed literally caved in the Death Guard center and penetrated all the way to their backfield objective, and it took Mortarion to sort them out.  The real pressure came from his big daemon engine brick -- one Hauler, both Drones, and both PBCs hooked to my right and my rolls for my lascannons just could not get it done.  The Havocs biffed two turns in a row and it took the Chosen  smashing down a Drone and a PBC to actually give me a fighting chance on that flank.

 

Overall Lessons Learned: I've used the word "disappointing" quite a bit already, but that seems to be the theme of today.  The Terminators did nothing for me.  A quick rejig in the WH app lets me swap that package out for a second Helbrute and a second squad of Havocs with 15 points to spare.  I'll have to build more -- my other painted squad is autocannons and I want more lascannons -- but that gives me heavier firepower and another double-dip Helbrute aura.  The Legionaries and Possessed are still my absolute MVPs and I love them both; the Chosen were functional last tourney but this time around they really laid out a lot of pain so they get to stay in.  As I expected, the balance slate change to Devastating Wounds had no real effect on the Possessed since they don't dole out single big hits but lots of small ones, and the mass-rerolls on them with Profane Zeal is just *chef's kiss.*  I missed having the free-stratagem on the Chosen that came from a Chaos Lord but honestly, the Khorne Enhancement works a lot better on the Exalted Champion.  He already gets +d3 Strength when Dark Pacting inherently; tacking an extra +d3 Strength and +d3 Attacks from the Talisman of Burning Blood just cranks up the hurt.  At one point he was heaving eight S10 attacks into Shalaxi Helbane.  Those left a mark, let me tell you!  I'll keep testing and refining and we'll see where this all ends up.

 

Thanks for reading!

[Malakithe]

What would you change now given the Balance changes?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

This army list was post-balance changes.  My old army had a Predator Destructor, and that got pulled for the Terminator package.