Lysander
Tactical Squad (10) in Rhino with grav-cannon and grav-gun
Tactical Squad (10) in Rhino with grav-cannon and grav-gun
Sternguard (10) in pod with locator beacon
Terminators (5)
Devastators (5) with 4 rocket launchers
Devastators (5) with 4 lascannons
Thunderfire Cannon
I was surprised I won best theme because my guys didn't look so sick, but then I realised there were three reasons: all my shit was painted nicely, my unit choices themselves were thematic (about as Imperial Fist as you can get in 1500 points), and I had a display board! I would not have won if my mate hadn't won best overall, because his display board was basically just a better version of mine (I gave him the idea for it). There were some gorgeous armies around including a fully converted Grot Army that I didn't manage to see IRL because I didn't know it was there and the guy only played for a day, and a superbly painted Admech convocation, but they didn't win because they didn't have the display board. Onwards for hobby!
Some quick notes on my list:
- I have some stuff for the front-field (terminators and sternguard deep striking), the mid-field (the tactical squads) and the backfield (the devastators and cannon), so I usually have stuff nearby to capture objectives. The exception is against armies that come to me really fast and unfortunately I played against 2 daemonkin armies in the first 2 games.
- Lysander is a beast in challenges and never gives up slay the Warlord unless he fights a D-thirster. He also makes your terminators hang around a lot longer - they were a standout unit for me doing heaps of work in just about every game. Imagine that! Terminator MVPs!
- The grav-cannon Rhinos were good for the competition level but really need scout (from Khan) to be top tier. The cost in mobility is rough. You lose heaps of effectiveness if you move and thus you can't really use the Rhinos for turbo boost shenanigans, which limits their usefulness. I typically turbo boosted my Rhinos to mid-field on turn 1 and then dropped off a combat squad to secure stuff or molest tanks with Krak grenades while my grav stayed in the tank to use it as a firing platform. This was good but clumsy in some missions, like deadlock.
- The sternguard were pretty great but I think a Rhino would have been better. Then I wouldn't have a locator beacon though, so hmmmm. On the drop I typically used them to get first blood by smoking a weak infantry unit, but then they often got a bit swamped. A rhino could get them into a nice firing position without casualties and from there they could be a great nuisance. Still, it was lovely being able to pod onto an objective turn 1 so I'm unsure. I'm still keen to try a Kantor and 3 sternguard squads in Rhinos list.
- The devastators were a little disappointing. They wreck transports no problem but typically took 2 turns to pop 13 front, even with tank hunters (including maulerfiends in game 1). However, with tank hunters they usually got a stun or something similar, which helps against evil tanks like vindicators (but not against daemon engines).
- If I was to make any changes it would be something like cut the sternguard to five with meltas, get a second thunderfire cannon and drop the rocket launcher devastators for something fast, like a bike squad with melta or grav or another tactical squad with flamers. OR, simply cut the rocket launchers for a small bike squad with flamers. I needed a touch more mobility. Ironically I also needed some horde killers (hence the second cannon), which I did not experience at all through playtesting, even against Guard!
On to the games!
GAME 1: Tactical escalation with long board edges against Khorne Daemonkin
His list:
5 maulerfiends
5+ squads of 5 hounds
2 squads of 10 cultists
2 Heralds of Khorne in a squad of bloodletters
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| I took this photo of my game1 opponent's army as he was prepping for game 2 - our terrain was different |
This was the lowest comped list in the whole tourney, which gives you an idea of what we're about. We were playing on a great looking table set up for trench warfare with some ruins centre table. I won the roll to go first and set up in one corner. I think I might have chosen the wrong side of the table because there wasn't quite enough elevation. The only unit on its own was my thunderfire you I backed up substantially to try and split his attack. This way I could mass firepower on what did come at me but not have absolutely everything coming at me at once.
He scouted forward with all his hounds. I shot. My shooting wasn't as effective as I hoped it would be. I managed to stun some fiends and kill a few hounds, but not much else. My sternguard didn't even manage to wipe a squad, which meant I couldn't grab an objective there.
Next turn he charged. Does that seem like a problem to you? It should, because he scouted and neither of us realised. It dawned on me 2 combat rounds later at which point he mentioned that he thought there was only a restriction on charging if he went first. Nope.
It was a mighty pickle. My inner competitive beast was rankling but I am proud to say I kept it under control. I honestly think it would have been a totally different game. My sternguard would have nuked his dogs and held up Maulerfiends there by threatening objectives and his assault wouldn't have had enough pop to do me in (in didn't in the end even with the turn 1 charge, but I was delayed from scoring). Moreover, my terminators would have hit him before he hit me, which would have left my devastators free to keep pinging his fiends as they came across field at my lines.
We decided to simply disengage the dogs from combat, which gave me a turn to shoot them but my squads were depleted and my terminators actually wanted to be in combat so that I could wipe them in his turn, consolidate and go punch a maulerfiend on my turn. Whatever.
The game ground on for a bit but my tactical marines managed to hold on long enough in most places to get bailed out by terminators and survive. Lysander was delayed by some dogs that he failed a 3" charge against and then failed to kill in one round when he did get round to it. He then failed a 5" charge against a maulerfiend. My techmarine went toe to toe with a different maulerfiend and they punched each other to death with power fists because he charged through cover (both swing at I1).
I managed to make an enormous comeback on the last turn scoring something like 8 points because he basically had nothing left but 3 squads of cultists. I managed to make one of them flee off an objective which granted me ascendency for 3 and I scored some other similar cards. I'd previously picked up slay the warlord with a lucky thunderfire cannon hit after his Herald had to drop back to hold an objective. I lost by 3 in the end, which I was happy with because our comp scores were quite different, and if that scout hadn't happened I think I might just have wrecked face.
MVP in this game was definitely the terminators. They killed 3 squads of dogs, a maulerfiend and 6 cultists, making them flee off a critical objective, and they only took 1 casualty!
GAME 2: Steel secure objective cards with short board edges against Khorne Daemonkin
His list:
D-slap blood thirster
Prince with armour, wings, axe that gets better as you use it
2 Squads of Bloodletters
3 squads of dogs
Squad of bikes with flamers (gore pack)
Heldrake with flamer
Soul Grinder with 3 shot gun and flegm
He deployed nervously knowing that I'd be all over his backfield with deep striking units if he wasn't careful. He left a squad of dogs there and a soul grinder with everything else on the 24" line. I clustered again because that's what you do against daemons that aren't summoning. Lysander started on the board again with his boys because I knew there would be plenty to punch.
First turn he charged everything forward. My turn I nuked a squad of bikes with grav for first blood and the Sternguard killed 3 dogs (not much I must say). I took some hull points off the soul grinder and my terminators went towards his Daemon Prince. The thunderfire did big damage to another dog squad hiding behind some rocks.
His turn the thirster and prince landed, the dogs ate a Rhino and his bloodletters dropped in just in front of my devastators. I lost some Sternguard to the soul grinder.
Sadly I had to shoot both devastator squads at the grinder on my turn to kill it which meant that I couldn't charge the bloodletters and keep them off my cannon and the objective he was holding. The sternguard the grinder was threatening charged the leftover dogs and crushed them. I killed some other dogs over by my wrecked Rhino and positioned Lysander to make a 5" charge into the Daemon Prince (Warlord) who I had immense confidence he would pound into a pulp while the terminators shot into the 2nd bloodletter squad. In the assault phase my terminators didn't manage to kill 5 bloodletters, which was lame because it meant they couldn't consolidate away from the bloodthirster (they could have gone to about 19" away).
More importantly though, Lysander failed the critical 5" charge, leaving the Daemon Prince to gang up on the terminators with the Thirster and kill them, which then allowed the remaining bloodletter to block Lysander from making another charge (it was pushed out to 7" for having to go around and I failed that as well) on the prince. This cost me the win I think because it meant I didn't get slay the Warlord and he did, and it meant that I could never weaken the Thirster on even ground with the terminators and thereby make it vulnerable to some grav death-blow, which was standing by in range. Who knows how the dice would have gone but I was instant killing on a 2+ with 4 attacks including a master-craft against a 5+ save. Methinks I would have been okay.
Not much happened after that because the game ended turn 5 (my opponent was pretty slow but he was also pretty new to competitive games). We ended in a draw. MVP in this game was the Sternguard scoring 4 points by themselves including first blood and linebreaker.
GAME 3: Friendly game
The third game at our club tournament is always a team game 2 on 2 called Rugby with guns and tanks. It's basically the relic but you score by taking the objective into your opponent's deployment zone. As coincidence would have it was exactly the same 4 people as in the team game last year. I was paired with a fairly standard space wolves list against my mate's Tempestus Scions and a Monty Python themed grey knights army (just 5 dudes or something like that). It wasn't much of a game because my mate continued retreating to avoid us charging and never even attempted to get the objective, so it ended in a draw without even so much as a fun character bash in the middle between the wolf lord and Lysander against the forces of the Ordo Malleus (the Scions were led by an inquisitor as well).
GAME 4: Deadlock in zone mortalis against Chaos Space Marines
His list:
Lord w/slaughterer's horns, jump pack, daemonheart, sword that gets better as you kill
5 Terminators with a heavy flamer and mark of nurgle
10 marines with mark of nurgle, Rhino and 2 plasma, power axe
10 marines with mark of nurgle, Rhino and 2 melta, power axe
Helbrute with two power fists
Helbrute with multi-melta
Helbrute with multi-melta
Vindicator
Vindicator
I got to play on the zone mortalis table again! And coincidentally it was against the same opponent as last year! He is a regular at our club went on to win best sport. The table was bad for both of us. I couldn't line of sight for my devastators and he had a muderpack (or whatever it's called) with three deep striking helbrutes that repeatedly suffered deep strike mishaps. Deadlock is also a nasty mission on this table because you chances of getting stuck in a trap where you can't score cards or get new ones is compounded by the lack of access from the walls. Our club has a house rule for this that was in effect where you can discard up to 2 cards per turn instead of the usual 1.
He had first turn. I deployed so that his vindicators didn't have a first turn shot and I could ping things that came into the big kill box in the middle of the table with my devastators. His vindicators came in there and his terminators and attached lord made their way across the back-half of the table to get to objective 6, which you can just see in the top corner of the picture. Lysander and my own terminators went over there to try to get slay the warlord. I also sent a combat squad down there because I too needed objective 6 and they could ob-sec over the terminators. In deadlock you absolutely must tolerate casualties to score cards otherwise you can get stuck very quickly.
On my turn my sternguard had to pod down into the back of his field to score some objectives. I didn't get to shoot anything but with a nice run I managed to score both cards. The sternguard then died to his marines. I thought this was a fair trade because it kept his 2 squads out of the action, but then he just drew those objectives markers over and over, so it didn't end up hurting him a whole lot. I did massive casualties to those squads with my thunderfire over the course of the game but it didn't matter at all.
In the middle where the action was at my Rhinos traded fire with his vindicators and came out on top thanks to cover from each other, though I was immobilised along the way. One combat squad popped over a wrecked tank in the latter stages to secure an objective.
Throughout the game his dreadnoughts kept trying to land and then mishapping and bouncing. When they did come down it was often into a hail of grav-fire. One killed a terminators, 'hugs', his two power fist dude, killed another 1 or 2, then they all died to devastators and grav cannons.
Most of the match was about our Warlords and objective 6. Both of us had 'hunger for glory' and other challenge/warlord related cards to score. He was trying to find a puny squad to charge with his warlord while I was trying to hunt him with Lysander. Lysander continued to struggle to find combat. First he failed a 5" charge down the corridor into the back of the terminators. Then the next turn I managed to roll the lucky 6 to explode his dreadnought with a lascannon and clear a path for another charge but this time Lysander failed a 4" charge. What a loser. His Warlord then escaped to menace my devastators, while my terminators killed his thanks to Lysander's tanking abilities.
I couldn't run his jump pack man down but I did manage to retreat my devastators and put a tank in the way. He killed the tank but then I managed to kill him with a huge quantity of firepower including 4 rockets, 4 lascannons, a grav cannon and grav-gun and a thunderfire shell. I got him with the last grav-shot to secure a 3 point victory. I must confess that I was very lucky with card draws in the back half of this game.
One point I want to make is that vindicators just aren't scary anymore. With the way cover works even if they manage to get a fat plate you often only lose 2 marines who then krak the tank to pieces. Monstrous creatures are just so much tougher and high strength multi-shot weaponry (like devourers or punisher gatling cannons) is much more reliable than blasts.
His army:
Wolf Lord with wolf claw on wolf of thunder wolf wolf wolf
Rune Priest with axe
5 Thunderwolves with 3 shields and 2 hammers
10 Hunters in Rhino with 2 plasma
9 Hunters in Rhino with 2 plasma
10 Hunters in Rhino with 2 melta
5 long fangs with a heavy bolter and 3 plasma cannons
5 Long fangs with 4 rocket launchers
Contact lost is a mission that can break armies that aren't ready for it. It was definitely the mission I was most scared of with my army because of my lack of mobility. On this terrain things would be particularly challenging because objectives could be placed high on buildings that would make it hard for me to achieve them without investing several turns. I tried to place most of my objectives along the edges of the table as far apart as possible. My hope was that I could hold such objectives with my devastators and cannon and drop on his objectives with my Sternguard and terminators. The midfield would be chock full of his guys but my grav-rhinos would be able to hold the fort long enough for me to press the advantage from my control of the objectives. He wouldn't have enough mobility to reach all the spread out objectives. He didn't mind the back field objectives because he had long fangs but placed his last objective (#6) on the top floor of the central building knowing that his wolves could get up in a turn if necessary.
His first turn he did as I anticipated and drove his tanks forward flanking his cavalry squad. His plasma squad did more casualties than I expected to my heavy weapon squad because I couldn't pass the 3++ cover saves. His rockets failed to harm my techmarine. I was ready to plow grav into everyone.
I was feeling pretty confident until on my first turn I drew secure objective 6, secure objective and recon. I would have to take that middle building. Boo.
At this point I made the tough decision to drop my pod on the building. If it hit I could disembark the sternguard onto the middle floor where they would have cover from the rocket launchers and rapid fire range on both them and the cavalry. I ended up scattering alongside the building, which meant that I had to spend this and another turn getting to the top and couldn't concentrate fire very well into the wolves, who also weathered my grav fairly well (I would say I am slightly lucky with dice, except with grav). I am not sure whether I should have instead dropped the sternguard into his plasma fangs as originally planned, where they could have secured a card-source objective, denied him one and then put fire into the middle of the table largely unmolested, and gone after objective 6 with a combat squad instead. This would have entailed moving a Rhino and thus sacrificing grav effectiveness on turn 1. I'll never know.
I managed to kill 2 cavalry and bring the remainder down to not many wounds. Lysander and his mates were lining up to smash serious face but then failed then 7" charge. Boo. His cavalry then went on a rampage through the devastators and one of my Rhinos because I couldn't catch them with Lysander. Instead my terminators chewed through his grey hunter squads. My grav, thunderfire and command squads cleaned up the rune priest and his unit and my sternguard did eventually kill his long fangs through the windows, though I was cut off from securing the objective they were on.
In the latter turns I was slowly taking control of the match. At the bottom of 5 he had 2 plasma cannons and a heavy bolter, his lord on 2 wounds and a thunder hammer cavalry man with a wound against a grav-rhino, a grav-squad on foot, a combat squad, 8 sternguard, my thunderfire, Lysander and 3 terminators with fists. If the game had gone to 1 more turn I am fairly confident I would have won based on the cards I drew after the match, but we ran out of time. Indeed, we barely managed to squeeze in turn 5, which we entered about 30 seconds after time was called. I don't think my opponent slow-played but I also don't understand how we ended up with so little time. Perhaps I was the slow one.
The MVP for this match was the techmarine, whose gun put on about 50 wounds over the course of the match and who annihilated the rune priest and 3 grey hunters in close combat in one game turn. Beat stick. Having the excellent cannons cost 100 points and come with such a monster character (2 wounds, 2 attacks, 2 fists, flamer, plasma gun, artificer armour), seems comically cheap. The second wound makes it hard to snipe him out from behind the T7 cannon and he can often survive a first wave of attacks in Close combat to come back with a face stomping 3 fist attacks.
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| I've got 2 wound now bitch! Come at me! |
His list:
Captain with the burning blade
5 sternguard in a razorback
6 tactical in a razorback with plasma gun and combi-plasma
10 tactical in a rhino with plasma gun and combi-plasma
5 sniper scouts with camo cloaks
5 sniper scouts with camo cloaks
Storm Raven with lascannons and multi-melta
Thunderfire cannon
5 terminators
1 Vindicator
I think this is a pretty terrible list but it does have a lot of MSU. Sniper scouts are expensive for midfield objectives because they die easily. Razorbacks are way overcosted. Plasma guns seem good but without a tactical doctrine to off-set the tendency to fry yourself they tend to become very expensive 2 shot weapons. That captain is never going to see combat in a razorback and when he does it better be against something that isn't good at fighting because otherwise they will take the blade hits and kill you on the return swing. The Storm Raven is okay I guess but I think they need more Dakka and why wasn't he transporting something in it? Vindicators just suck.
Anyways. This was a strange game. Typical maelstrom really. I felt in control the whole time but I just couldn't score and neither could he because of the cards we had. My lack of mobility was an issue but there was also a comedy of failed charges.
Sorry for the lack of a picture. My opponent was a podcaster taking about a thousand photos and for some reason it didn't occur to me to follow suit. We were on short board edges in light cityfight terrain and he had no deep strikers, which meant that my thunderfire and devastators were basically going to lay the pain all game. He deployed a lot of stuff across his backfield, including the thunderfire in a ruin, some scouts over a grav-field generator, his terminators in a crater and his captain and sternguard (and their tank) in a building by another objective. This deployment meant that I had several turns to shoot his terminators to pieces and his captain never threatened me. He had a few transports shoot up a flank where they promptly died to my rocket launchers. His vindicator had to hide from my devastators most of the game which meant they it had only bad targets and eventually died to grav and some sternguard krak grenades (free slingshot!).
First turn I podded into the middle to secure an objective in cover and try to kill 5 scouts with ignore cover rounds. They lived but I still managed to get first blood with rockets into a Rhino. I turbo boosted both Rhinos forward according to plan A, which is to get into position and then grav all day, which is basically what happened. Next turn my terminators landed alongside one of the tanks just outside the ruin the pod dropped into. They absorbed a huge amount of firepower the next turn. A thunderfire cannon, 2 tactical squads, 5 scouts and the vindicator managed to kill one terminator. They then went on a rampage, or tried to at least. One of his combat squads failed a morale check on shooting and so the terminators weren't able to charge them. Lysander nailed a combat squad and then moved on to the Vindicator. Meanwhile my other Rhino grav destroyed his ambling terminators in a display of exactly why you deep strike and bring Lysander.
His stormraven came on just as my devastators were running out of targets and we traded shots for a while. Eventually I managed to shoot him down thanks to a targetting-relay helping me to get those 6s. It was right after I had discarded scour the skies on the assumption that he would fly off the board...
I was holding 3 reasonable objectives for most of the game but continuously delayed in scoring them by failed charges and a pesky scout who wouldn't die and was protected from charges from below by a grav-wave generator and the need for me to move through cover. In this game Lysander made his first long charge at 8" to reach the techmarine but then missed all four of his attacks and rolled yet another 1 on the master-craft re-roll. The techmarine died the next round but this was still comical.
I eventually won by 3 from memory, in part because I insisted we play to turn 6 given that time hadn't been called, which my opponent seemed a bit sour about. It took us about 3 minutes and we finished pretty as the announcement was made, so I fail to see the problem. Things didn't work out heaps well for me that turn either thanks to that damn scout, otherwise the margin might have been more substantial.
Just for reference, that scout squad took heavy fire for about 3 turns from pretty much everything in my army. The 2+ cover save obviously goes a long way (and he made a 6+ FNP at one point as well), but I was also using ignore cover cannon rounds and the sternguard's ignore cover rounds as well. Oh well.
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| A blurry shot of my most valuable unit - terminators! |
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