Dec 4th Tourney at Showcase Comics, Media PA PART 3

The final part of my tourney report:

Round 3
Mission: Kill Everything (Annihilation with Victory points in lieu of kill points, bonus for having HQ alive at end, bonus for HQ being in enemy deployment zone at end)
Opponent: Kevin, playing Blood Angels

Kevins Blood Angel List:
Commander Dante
Mephiston, Lord of Death
5 x Thunder hammer/Storm Shield Terminators
1x Sanquinary Priest
Land Raider Redeemer w/ Multi Melta, Extra Armour
10x Tactical Marines, Melta Gun, Lascannon, Power Weapon
10x Tactical Marines, Metla Gun, Lascannon, Power Weapon
10x Assault Marines w/ Jump Packs, 2x Melta Guns, Power Weapon
Predator with lascannons


Summary: I didnt actually read Kevins list up front, I let him tell me what he had, and I was a bit nervous.  You hear all the time how Mephiston will kill your family and friends and even your dog and sometimes even your friends dog!  Also, I am never a fan of those Furious Charge, 3+ invul, TH, Feel no pain termies.

I took first turn and castled up on the right corner with my dreads on my flanks and my thunderfire on a tall piece of terrain giving it total control of the board.  I kept my termies in reserve. He deployed his 2 tactical squads on each side of his deployment zone in cover and had his Redeemer and Pred on the left (his right) in the back hanging out with Mephiston.  Dante and the jump marines were in reserve.

I moved the bikes flat out to the land raider, positioned my castle and shot half of one of his tacticals to death.  Mephiston failed to cast his flight spell, helping me for one turn. The redeemer moved forward 12, flamed a biker causing one wound, and his termies got out and multi assaulted 2 of the bikes and killed them. He stunned a predator in the shooting phase. 

Turn 2 I popped the redeemer with the attack bike, then focused fire on the terminators. Tried to slow them down with the thunderfire special ammo, but they wound up rolling a 6 for movement anyways.  Mephiston killed the biker to protect his las pred on his turn.  He wrecked a razorback with a lascannon shot.

Turn 3 my termies came in behind his full left tactical.  I cast The Avenger on his perfectly lined up tactical in cover and killed 6 marines (gotta love the AP3 flamer). I shot everything into the terminators bringing down 2, they then charged one of my dakka dreads wrecking it. Dante and his marines jumped to my right flank popping a razorback with all their melta. Mephiston, doubled back using his flying power and charged my termie squad, fighting my librarian causing 3 wounds, which I saved on a 3+ !!!.  Now apparently, the Lord of Death, does not have an invul save? My 10 thunderhammer attacks mashed him into space vampire mush as they struck back. 

Turn 4 My librarian left the termie squad, finished off the remainder of his tac squad in cover with another Psychic AP3 Flamer shot.  My Termies headed over to the predator which had not moved and scored like 10 penetrating hits and blew it up. I fired some melta and krack and autocannons from my right dread and rhino at the assault squad.  I finished off his right side tac with my predator. Then fired everything left into the terminators -  4 small templates from thunderfire, 1 krack missle, 1 melta gun, 3 lascannons, 1 autocannon, 10 rapid fire bolters, and a storm bolter. Killing the sanquinary priest right away (bye bye FNP) and taking them down!  The right side dakka dread then charged the assault marines on my right side, killing 2, winning the combat.  They failed leadership and died.

TABLED!

I earned max points (20) for the VP's, plus 1 for killing all enemy HQ's, plus 1 for having my HQ in his deployment zone in the end for a total of 22 points. I would of wont best round 3 battle points, but I tied with Dameon and he beat me on painting score -  I wasnt fully painted and lets face it... Dameons Thousand Sons look bad ass!  Here is a link:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=300005&pIndex=2&aId=11600017&start=3

Kevin had a couple bad rolls, but overall I just dont think his list was good for this type of mission.  Each unit was over 250 points and so I only had to kill like 5 things to win.  He also had the 2 tactical squads try to out shoot me, which just wasnt going to happen - I am gunline, you are blood angels, nuff said.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really enjoyed my first tourney.  Overall, the players were fun.  There was plenty of net list cheeze, some pretty Army Painter Quick Shaded Armies, and of course every special character imaginable from Strahken, to Urien, Mephiston, and even an Ultra Marines version of Vulkan- Imagine that! Showcase Comics has an amazing set up with plenty of tables, great terrain, a bathroom, and a chick fil a across the hall!  Mike runs a great outfit (though I thought he was going to cook).

Coming in 2nd best general was a big surprise. I believe that puts me in at 4th place, they should be posting the total points sometime soon at :
http://www.biggunz-ne.com/

Not too bad for a first timer.  I know I need to go back and finish up my models and refine the ones I had painted already. I also think a display board is important for paint score. I  felt a bit out of place in carrying my army in an upside down warhammer fantasy skull pass box top.

With my baby due early Jan, I think this will be it for me for a while, though I will be trying to play casually at Dream Wizards in rockville as much as possible.

-My 2 Cents

Dec. 4th Tourney at Showcase Comics, Media PA PART 2

Part 2 of my tourney report.  
1850 points played on December 4th, 2010, see my previous post for my list.

Round 1
 
Mission: Modified Seize Ground (terrain was either on fire/dangerous or smoking/+1 cover, points for both objectives and KP, bonus for having HQ left, Bonus for having HQ in enemy deployment zone)
Opponent: Walter, playing Dark Eldar
Walters DE List:
Adrubeal Vect
Haemonculous w/ liquifier
Haemonculous w/ liquifier
9 Wyches w/ haywire grenades, razorflails 1 hekatrix, agonizer in a Raider w/ flicker field and night shields
10 warriors, SC, Blaster, Sybarite, agonizer in a raider w/ flicker field and night sheilds
10 warriors, SC, Blaster, Sybarite, agonizer in a raider w/ flicker field and night sheilds
10 warriors w/ Dark Lance, sybarite
10 warriors w/ Dark Lance, sybarite
3 Incubi w/ Klaivex in a Venom w/ flicker field, night shields
1 Void Raven, night shield, flicker field, 4 x necro missles 2x dark lances
1 Ravager w/ nightshield, flicker field, disintegrators
1 Ravager w/ nightshield, flicker field, dark lances

Summary: Walter was just getting into the serious scene, so this was also his first tourney.  I was not sure what to expect from Dark Eldar.  We had 5 objectives pretty much evenly spaced out.  I deployed castled up on a smoking ruin with an objective in it.  The 2 adjacent objectives were easy to grab as I began to be comfortable spreading out a bit with my rhinos.  By turn 5, I had 3 objectives.  I had also contested his only objective with my terminators, he contested the last objective which I had on my home with his wytches. I think one more turn and I might of had them all! The DE were indeed fast and their lances were pretty scary just in that there were alot of them.  I think the suppressive fire was the key to keeping them at bay.  However, even with all I had, a venom and a raider still made it to me and of course they were the HQ death squad one and the Wytch/Homoculous one!
Some key moments were:
-I reinforced the smoking ruin my tac squad and thunderfire were in giving it a 2+ cover save!  His wytches made it into there and I was not able to get them out. Man was I missing my heavy flamers then! This is the objective they managed to contest.
-His scary command squad had a chance to take a tac squad but decided to fight one of my dreads first, this made him tie this squad up for 2 turns before they lost combat and fell back, only to be shot to death. A major mistake on his part, and probably saved me a squad or 2.

Walter was a really cool dude going for his doctorate in Philly.  He had a great attitude and was really appreciative of the game.

WIN: 18 Points including having my HQ alive and in enemy deployment zone
Opponent score: 2 Points including having one HQ alive and in my deployment zone (with his wytches)

Round 2

Mission: Football (infantry pick up objective/football, whoever holds it at the end wins the points. Bonus for killing all enemy troops, bonus for killing all enemy HQ's)
Opponent: Brian, playing Deamons of Chaos

Brians Deamon List:
Fateweaver
2x Deamon princes of nurgle with some shooting attack and flying
Blood Thrister
5x Bloodcrushers (that apparently count as infantry!)
10+Bloodletters
2x squads of 5 Plague Bearers

Summary:  Brian is an experienced player from the Inner Circle Gaming Club so I was a bit worried on top of the fact that Deamons of Chaos have always given me a really hard time.  Power weapons everywhere, multi wound MC's that fly and have eternal warrior, spells that arent psychic powers, deep striking up in my face... No good at all!

So the big advantage that I felt I had on this mission was that only infantry could hold the football and I had a lot of infantry. I took first turn even though I had no targets and rushed my rhinos up and started walling off a channel with my other vehicles give my Termies a safe corridor to run back with the football.  By going first it gave me 2 movement phases before I had to worry about  being assaulted.  This worked great and I was able to hold the nasties off for quite a while.  I feed the bloodcrushers and princes a rhino, then the squad, then another rhino, and another squad, etc... each turn denying them my termies.  Until turn 4. Then fateweaver reached them.  I was suprised that he used fateweaver for assault but I think it was just to tie my guys up.  He killed my librarian in CC right off the break, eliminating Null Zone from my arsenal.  I blocked the bloodcrushers with my tanks and a large piece of impassable terrain, keeping them stuck at the mid point of the table.  As turn 5 approached, I knew he was going to break my line, so I charged the bloodcrushers with my autocannon dread, which kept them tarpitted for the rest of the game.  Sadly though, a nurgle prince finally made it past my road blocks and into my termies.  After 2 rounds with fateweaver and the prince, the 5th TH/SS termie finally fell and dropped the football on turn 6.  Had the game ended turn 5, I would of had the football and won!  He got 4 points for killing my HQ, I had 0 since I didnt kill all of his HQ's and didnt have the ball :(


All in all, I think I did amazingly well on this match, I dont know how I could of done anything different and had I not failed that final 3+ invul save or had the game ended after turn 5, it would of been a win.  Brian was a fun player who was not too intense and we kept some fun in the game.  He also had some awesome forgeworld greater nurgle deamon models which were really cool to see on the table.

LOSS: 0 points
Opponent Score: 4 points for killing all of my HQ choices (I had only 1)

Stay tuned for the final part of my report......

Dec 4th Tourney at Showcase Comics, Media PA PART 1

First part of my summary of the 1850 Tourney at Showcase comics at the Granite Run Mall in Media, PA.  Went with Dameon and his Thousand Sons and had a great time.

This was my first Tourney and I decided to field my Gunline Vanilla Marines.  This was also the first time I have ever played 1850 points, which to me is a strange number.  Anyways, it was a great time and I did much better than I thought I would.  I took 2nd place best General and I think somewhere around 4th place overall, waiting for total points to be posted.


                                                            1850 Crimson Fists (Vanilla)

Terminator Librarian with Storm Shield - Null Zone, Avenger
10 man Tactical w/ Melta Gun, Missile Launcher in Rhino w/ Dozer Blade
10 man Tactical w/ Melta Gun, Missile Launcher in Rhino w/ Dozer Blade
5 man Tactical w/ Combi Melta in Razorback w/ Lascannon/twin linked plasma gun
5 man Tactical in Razorback w/ lascannon/twin linked plasma gun
5 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators
1 Dreadnought w/ 2 twin linked autocannons
1 Dreadnought w/ 2 twin linked autocannons
1 Attack bike w/ Multi Melta
1 Attack bike w/ Multi Melta
1 Attack bike w/ Multi Melta
Thunderfire Cannon w/ Techmarine in Servo Harness
1 Predator w/ Autocannon turret and lascannon sponsons
1 Predator w/ Autocannon turret and lascannon sponsons
1850 points

Overall this list did great.  I didnt need the dozer blades and would of preferred to use the 10 points for another combi weapon on the Razorback tactical squad, but oh well, you never know till after the fact.  I put out a great amount of volume of fire and the thunderfire did great as well.  Additionally, the small termie squad really put the hurt down in all 3 games, usually they just die, but not this day.  I was def. missing the usual heavy flamers from the dreads and speeders I have become accustomed to, leaving me a bit underpowered against hordes, which luckily I didnt play this time.

Will post battle summaries soon.