Jan 14th Tourney

Tim Tells me that i have to make a battle report for the Tourney, so here goes.

First just a short list:

Rhaevyn and Rhaedyn - TZ Daemon princes /w Warptime and Wind
3 Squads of Rubrics in rhinos with Aspiring sorcerers /w Bolt of Change
The Fist of Magnus - Auto/Las Predator
Brother Kallus- Single Obliterator
Brothers Brutalis and Vicious - Obliterator Duo

Not a ton of models. But what is there is tough to take down. It also made for quick deployments. With the Tsons units acting like poor mans Razorbacks (Sorc /w bolt out of the hatch)
Overall, i was disappointed in the prince's performance, though perhaps not for any fault of their own.

First Match was vs Alex's Fantasic looking Ork army. I'm almost jealous of the fun he has with conversions and scratch builds.
We ended up on the Pillage/Salvage(?) mission table. Which is basically a control point game, except that instead of counting VP's held at the end of the game, you make a running total of points held at the end of each opponents turn.

We ended up with 5 Nodes in a star pattern, one directly in the middle of the table. Deployment was table quarters with just an HQ and two troops, with everying else in Reserve. I won first deployment, which meant that Alex got first turn. I dropped a rhino on the center of the table touching that node, and hid a daemon prince behind it(Much to the Daemon's chagrin later). I placed my second troop on the other node in my deployment area. Alex deployed his Orks in the opposite corner, with one unit of boys touching his node, and another midfield poised to run accross and secure the node on my left. As well as a Mek Boy with a Shokk Attack Gun in cover with a clear line of sight to the rest of the table.

Top of Turn 1 Was Alex's, His first set of boys moved toward the centre of the table, intent on removing my Tsons from their loot. He rolled very low on his waaagh or difficult terrain test, however, and couldn't get into combat. his other Boys trudged across the table towards that objective. The Mek Boy fired up his Shokker and dropped a pie plate on the centre of my rhino and touching the Daemon prince... then Alex promptly rolls a HIT! and Boxcars. Sending my Prince home on vacation and Immobilizing the rhino with a penetrating hit. End of Turn - 2 Salvage points for TZ.

Bottom turn 1 my Rubrics wisely stay inside their metal box. The rhino bolters and the rubrics rapid firing from the hatch take down a few Boyz. second rhino sits tight on its objective.End of turn Pillage Points - 0

Top of turn 2 Alex gets a Def Rollah with some burna boys and some Kannons from reserve. The Def rolls on pointed at my rhino in the backfield, and the kannons come out in cover on the other side. Shokk gun misses my centre rhino, and Boys assault the rhino and blow it up, killing a few more boyz and clearing some space around the objective. My rubrics huddle up to the objective while eying the Boyz on the other side of it. End of Turn- 2 Salvage points

Bottom turn 2 My second prince comes in from reserve as well as my third rhino and predator- both oblit squads are taking their time. Prince flys on 12 to intercept the boyz that are almost to my left side objective. Rhino moves up to secure it. Predator fires a single lascannon shot at the mek boy and vaporizes him in retaliation for our dead prince. Living prince belches Wind of chaos onto the Boyz and assaults them, taking down 8-10 boyz combined. Boyz and nob roll terribad and lose combat, but still have the numbers to be fearless. Middle of the table, the rubrics rapid fire the Boyz in the face but dont assault(my mistake here, should have assaulted) -oh and my backfield rubrics had disembarked and their rhino drove forward to block the path of the Truck with burnnahs. End of turn- 1 Pillage point

Top Turn 3 Alex gets his command Truk with another MekBoy /w Kustom force field, it races toward the left objective on my side,and a unit of 3 Soda Pop Kans run onto the table midfield as well. His Def rollah Rams my empty rhino, and rolls up an immobilized result. His Kannon shots blow up my Left side rhino, and his Boyz midfield fire at my marines but see more intent on their coming charge. Combat sees my prince take out 4 more orks thanks to warptime, his Nob puts two wounds on the prince. boyz pass their moral check, Combat continues! Whats left of the midfield Boyz charge my rubriks, the Sons and their sorcerer pretend that they are Berzerkers and put 5! wounds on the boyz. boyz do a bunch of wounds, but the 3+/4+ of the Sons fends them off. Boyz loose combat and run away! Sons consolidate around the objective. End of turn - 3 Salvage Points

Bottom Turn 3 Both Squads of oblitz Drop onto the table. Single on the left, double on the right. Either sorcerers bolt of change, or the oblit immobiles the Truk I forget, Predator immobilizes the Truck with the Def Rollah. oblitz miss both shots. sorc in middle of table also misses. Prince Dies to nob klaw, and nobz consolidate around the Tsons on the objective, but cant get close enough to touch it and get pillage points. End of Turn 3 Pillage Points- 0

Top of turn 4 Mek and boyz hop out of truk and head to help out on the left side objective. Rokkets are way off target, burna boys from the Def Rollah truk head for the middle objective. The Mek Boy and his squad decimate my squad on the left in combat, but the burna boys cant quite get to my middle objective. end of turn, 2 Salvage points.

That was all the time we had, as the whistle blew and we had to call it. So victory for the Fate Weaver with a 9-1 Overall.

Match 2 was VS Tom's Chaos on Table1 - The Evacuation

So I'm not the biggest fan of this scenario in a tourney format, but I'm sure it made for some fun games! I know Tim found a good use for Gate as the defender. The premise iirc was that the defender set up in a narrow patch in the middle of the table along with a Genator? (hencforth known as escaping dude) Dude is trying to get to a landing pad in one corner of the table while an attacking force comes in on the other short edge of the table to try and stop this from happening. Otherwise its a kill point mission. with the defender getting 3 extra points if the Dude gets away, or the attacker if it doesn't.. Oh.. and its in space, so infantry can "jump" and multi-wound models take d3 wounds instead of just one on an unsaved wound...

I'm not going to do a round by round on this one as it basically comes down to Kharn Vs Tzneetch shooting. Tom started in the middle of the table on foot and ran at my Sons. Sons sat at the table edge and shot kharn and his followers in the face. On turn 3 my single oblit deep struck into the back field and obliterated the Dude with a rapid fired plasma gun just before it reached the platform. The only really exciting moment is when my entire army shot at 3 chaos bikes and failed to do a single wound on turn 2. his champ promptly turned into a greater daemon, which mauled my predator. the rest of my force ignored it the next turn and shot up kharns footsloggers until it was just kharn left, and then an obliterator shot him in the face with a lascannon. Next turn the Greater Daemon smashed a rhino and then stood there for my next round of shooting, in which he took 2 wounds from rapid firing thousand sons... which turned into 5 wounds... because it was space.

A fun fact here is that i had reserved both of my daemon princes and they did not come onto the table until turn 5 where they stared down the GD but didnt even get a chance to breath on him or assault.

Overall, it was a fun game, but the scenario and toms army build just played against him. Kharn needs a rhino, or a land raider.. or something.

End result 6+3(for the Dude)= 9kp to 3

Match 3 VS Tim

Basic mission Annihilation/Dawn of War

Tim brought the shootiest army i've seen out of marines yet. Thunderfire cannon, Two dakka preds, two MM dreads, 3 units of scouts, one missile speeder, 2 MM speeders in a squadron, attack bike /w melta, librarian in a unit of shooty termies and Gate of Infinity/and that crap power that makes my daemons cry. Along with 3 min sized units of scouts for scoring. If i count right that's a full FOC list except for 1 HQ choice.

He won the roll to go first, but deferred to me. I placed one prince in the middle of the table and hid a couple rhinos behind some cover nearby. i knew he was going to not deploy anything at all, because that's what he does every Dawn of War... and he did just that.

First turn i flew my prince forward, hoping that night fight and his 4+ invul would keep him alive through the first turn and set up an assault on turn 2. my second prince and a Rhino ran up my right flank and hid behind a mountain. Rhinos moved forward a bit to support the prince, but still take advantage of cover. Pred rolled up in midfield, hoping for targets.

Tim's first turn he brought the entire army in and hugged his board edge, except for an outflanking speeder (typhoon? missile one anyway) One of his Dreads lit up my prince with a search light and then the rest of his army "lit" him up as well. for his part i'm pretty sure tim had to roll quite a few dice before the prince actually fell down, but fall down he did. Tim's second Dread also rolled well enough to see one of my rhinos and lit it up so his speeder squadron wrecked it and the sons had to jump out and find cover.

turn two my single oblit showed up but the double didn't. my prince and its friend rhino continued into enemy space, headed for two units of scouts that were hugging the board edge near the corner. the single oblit and the sons in the middle of the table manage to kill one speeder and take a MM off the other. Predator immobilizers a Dreadnought directly across the table from it.

bottom turn Two Tim's Typhoon comes on the left flank and stuns my predator. his short range shooting takes out the unit of Tsons that was forced out of their rhino last turn, and a Mm shot from a speeder or the attack bike takes out my Oblit. Tons of shooting by thunderfire and Dakkas at the prince on the right is largely ineffective. Tim attempts to Gate of infinity his terminators into the middle of the table, but scatters almost all the way back to where he started, except into difficult terrain. losing a couple men along the way.

Turn 3: Prince and rhino continue their trek into enemy territory. My two Oblitz drop in and take out the Typhoon. My midfield rhino backs up toward my board edge. and the sorcerer shakes the remaining speeder with a bolt. Predator is shaken so no pew pew. Not much of a turn.

Bottom turn 3 tims massed heavy support finally takes out the prince and his attack bike beings the trek over to go for the rhino. His shaken speeder parks itself in front of my predator, forcing the issue. His librarian Gates his terminators into my deployment zone, a few inches from my rhino, pred, and oblitz. Thier shooting against the rhino is largely ineffective.

Turn 4: Rhino moves up 6, its bolters and the Sons inside manage to kill 3 of the 5 scouts in the corner. scouts pass their check and don't run away. Oblitz drop plasma on the bunched up terminators that were served up like a lash platter for them and manage to kill 3. Rhino and Tsons inside manage to shoot down another couple, iirc there was just a librarian and 2 terminators left. predator lights up speeder as that's all it can really see.

bottom turn 4: Tims attack bike stuns the right side Rhino rest of his shooting is largely ineffective.

turn 5: predator tries to kill the attack bike and misses all 4 shots. Oblits shots bounce off the terminators invul saves, all shots from rhino are ineffective. Tsons on right side dont kill anything useful.

Bottom turn 5: Tims attack bike finally kills the right side rhino, forcing the sons to get out. rest of his shooting on that side of table does little. shooting and assaults by remaining terminators fails to blow up rhino.

Tim rolls a 2 and the game ended.

Notes about this game: I'm a bad player and didn't really look at Tims force before deploying. except for the thunderfire and the typhoon, just about his entire force is limited to 24 inch range. If i had pulled my prince back on the first turn instead of running into his kill zone, i could have waited for my oblitz and spend the game shooting down speeders and bikes that came to try and claim any VP's. I could maybe have had a slim 2-3 point win. Even with this tactic i think my army was just outmatched. Just like my shooting outmatched Tom's CC oriented list in Game 2, the shear amount of hard target firepower that Tims army puts out is just overwhelming. I Brought a bow and arrow to a shoot-out.

Overall i had fun and its great to see a good 40k turnout. Thanks to Beau for running it!

Fun fact.. I acquired the Thousand sons models 2 days before the Tourney and its the first time I've ever fielded the unit, now or in the 90's.

Good report Mike, and thanks for taking the time to do it up. Now if you remember correctly, I killed your last rhino with a rending sniper rifle not a multi-melta! Just wanted to remind you of that little fact I only played one of the weird scenarios and my army was uniquely equipped to take advantage of it. I'm usually not a huge fan of them but they didn't seem too bad. Concerns would be forcing the majority of an army into reserves (was that the case for the salvage mission?). That just adds another random factor into the game that the player has no control over. Reserves should always be optional IMHO. The tank one looked fun and crazy, but my only concern there would be the amount of time rotating and shooting the tanks every turn would add to the game. For the escape one, maybe make the guy worth less, or place some more stipulations on how he could move. Anyway, I really enjoyed the day and thanks everyone for participating!

I stand corrected on the causation of the untimely destruction of my vehicular transport!

Re missions: the Genator could use with being less squishy. perhaps making him a monstrous creature with more wounds and a better armor save...or a dreadnought? he suffers from being very squishy, but you also want to avoid people being able to Gate him. To be honest, i think the defender has a very large advantage in that scenario, if he takes advantage of it.

Agreed great battle reports, it's nice to get a player's eye view of the events.

Tim, apprecite the critique.

Evacuation will not be making a reappearance w/o major tweaks. I like the premise, but the mission just came up flat and needs work

Pillage I like, it just needs clarifiaction of deployment etc. Inclined to make deployment identical to DoW.

The desert Convoy mission I think is fine, if you'd like to play it sometime let me know. The tanks go rather quickly really.

Yeah, I think dawn of war deployment would be a great fix for that salvage mission. As for the tank one, I'd definitely be willing to try it. I suppose if none of the tanks were firing templates (unlike the russes that were initially tested!) it wouldn't add too much time.

In the original write up it was Russ's w/ 3 HB and a stubber. Drew and I played it with 7 Russes (2 too many!) and it actually went fairly fast. 1st turn takes a little longer, 2-3rd about the same, and by then the tanks are usually wrecked.