Doomsday - Tournament Report

Oh look, the 150th post on this blog is a tournament report. How convenient. Yesterday I attended a small, 1 day tournament at the Oxford Gaming Club. It was a 1,650pt 40k event. Pictures will be up when I have some wi-fi.
My list was as follows:

HQ:

Rune Priest: 170
-Runic Armour
-Master of Runes

Rune Priest: 120
-Runic Armour
-Jaws
-Living Lightning

Elites:

Lone Wolf: 85
-Thunder Hammer
-Storm Shield
-Terminator Armour

Lone Wolf: 85
-Thunder Hammer
-Storm Shield
-Terminator Armour

Troops:

9 Grey Hunters: 185
-Drop Pod
-Meltagun
-Wolf Standard

7 Grey Hunters: 120
-Meltagun
-Wolf Standard

7 Grey Hunters: 120
-Meltagun
-Wolf Standard

Heavy Support:

6 Long Fangs: 140
-5 Missile Launchers

6 Long Fangs: 140
-5 Missile Launchers

Allied HQ:

Primaris Psyker: 70

Allied Troops:

Infantry Platoon: 255

Platoon Command: 35
-Vox Caster

Infantry Squad: 60
-Flamer
-Vox Caster

Infantry Squad: 55
-Flamer

Infantry Squad: 55
-Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad: 50

Allied Heavy Support:

Manticore: 160

Total: 1,650 

Game 1: Imperial Guard/Space Marines:

Due to the Oxford Bus Company screwing me over, twice, I was a little late to the party, arriving to discover that the first mission was Kill Points with corner deployment. This was ok as since I added in the Guard blob the list has not failed to win a Kill Points mission, including at the GT Finale. My opponent was wielding a durable list however.

He was playing Imperial Guard with Space Marine allies. He had a Leman Russ Demolisher. Plasma Vets in a Chimera, Melta Vets in a Chimera, Guard Blob with Commissar, Aegis Defence Line with Quad Gun, Mortar Team of 3, Autocannons in the blob, Vendetta, Command Squad with Lascannon, Space Marines Captain with Artificer Armour on a Bike, and lots of individual Bikes.

Now, my opponent's trump card in this game was that he was exceptionally anal. Lovely guy, but exceptionally anal, and I am an authority on anal. Back in 6th form, I got a U in my first A-level Economics paper because on the instructions for the multiple choice I was told to fill in the entirity of the dot but not go outside of the dot. Meaning that I spent about 70% of the time doing 1/3rd of the paper.

Now, it is a tournament, and I expect anality, and he was fair enough with it, but there were a couple of things like completely ignoring combats because he didn't want anything to change in them meaning that I forgot about them, which is fair enough, that's my mistake, however if there's a potential for him to benefit from it I would have thought that you'd have participated even if that outcome was unlikely. Fair play though as it's my mistake, it just kind of annoyed me. Another one was where I was asked to re-roll a dice because it didn't roll properly when it came out of my hand, which isn't really something that I can control and so that annoyed me as well. But anyway, the game.

I chose deployment zone, and put him in the corner with the hill and about it for terrain, I then got first turn also. Deployed my Manticore behind some line of sight blocking stuff, blob dead centre, flanked by Grey Hunters and Lone Wolves. Long Fangs for maximum line of sight, 1 pack in a ruin one on the ground.

He then makes a mistake with the deployment of his Aegis (which happened before I deployed). He puts it right at the front of his deployment zone, which I think is a mistake for 2 reasons. 1. This is right in front of the hill, and anyone on the hill is not obscured by his Aegis, so his blob's going to be in trouble if it goes there. 2. It makes it much easier for me to charge him as he's now closer to me. He's not going to beat me in a long range shooting war, but even putting it that close he's still involved in one, plus he's unlikely to win a short range shooting war if my blob gets in range of his that early on.

He then puts his blob behind the Aegis, the Demolisher in reserve, and the Chimeras on each flank, on his long board edge with the melta guys he also puts the bikes and the Company Command.

He fails to seize.

I drop down with my Grey Hunters in the pod, kill his Mortar team, first blood. 2-0 to me. I stun his melta Chimera and reduce it to 1 hull point, and I kill his Company Commander, however you need to kill the whole squad for Warlord. A few bikes go down too.

His Bikers push forward and charge the Lone Wolf, who challenges the Captain and beats him down to a single wound remaining. He also lays into the Grey Hunters, leaving 2 remaining who run away.

The 2 Grey Hunters regroup and charge his Plasma Chimera, which we then conveniently forget to do. The other Grey Hunters charge the Bikers, losing a guy but killing some stuff. The Long Fangs wreck the Melta Chimera and reduce the Company Command to the Lascannon. 3-0

Vendetta comes on, blows up the Manticore. Demolisher comes on, kills the 2 remaining Grey Hunters and stuns the Drop Pod. 3-2. Lone Wolf kills the Captain, and the Grey Hunters kill all but one of the Bikes, who runs back. 4-2

My turn 3, the Grey Hunters plow into the newly disembarked melta squad, severely damaging them, the Company Command is finally killed off. The other Lone Wolf charges and ties up the blob, the Grey Hunters charge the Chimera that I meant to hit last time, and kill it. The Lone Wolf who killed the Captain finishes off the last bike. 8-2

Vendetta fails to kill anything, the Demolisher kills all but one of the Grey Hunters. Grey Hunters in combat despatch of the last of the Veterans. 9-2.

Plasma Vets are ravaged and run away, the Vendetta is shot and dies, the Platoon Command inside going with it, my Guard blob charges his Guard blob. 12-2.

Demolisher fires, scatters into the Guard blob, killing a couple.

The Grey Hunters charge into the blob, killing a load.

The combat ends with the Space Wolf blob killing the Marine blob. 13-2.

The game ends with him just having the Demolisher left. 14-4 including secondaries and Lone Wolves.

Game 2: Tau:

This game was on table 1, and with this victory, I drop down the tables to table 2. My next round opponent is a friend and regular gaming buddy of mine. BJ of 40kUk/40kGlobal fame. He's using his Tau army, which looks a bit like this.

Commander with Fusion Blaster and some other Tau stuff, Ethereal, Crisis Suits with Fusion Blasters and Tau stuff, Riptide with Tau stuff. 16 Kroot, some Fire Warriors, 2 squads of Pathfinders, Skyray with Tau stuff, Devilfish with Tau stuff, Hammerhead with Longstrike.

The mission is Dawn of War, 3 objectives Big Guns Never Tire. He chooses Deployment Zone, and picks the one with a single objective in it but more cover save granting terrain, which I was fine with. He then got to choose who had first turn and took it himself. He spread his army across the line, as he wanted to be near my objectives to shoot me from them (pics later), but also wanted to be holding his. So he put Longstrike on his objective and bubblewrapped his Riptide from Jaws-Bombing Death.

I mainly castled behind an impassible LoS blocking piece, not big enough to hide my whole army though. However, I did put a Grey Hunter squad far on the left opposite his objective. This game is a little harder to do blow by blow, as it was extremely tricksy and not quite as straight forward. My plan was to give him so many targets to deal with that he wouldn't be able to push me from my objectives.

Obvously with first turn he crippled my Long Fang packs and stunned my Manticore, before killing it in the next turn, but no matter. Turn 1 I dropped my Pod on the opposite side of the table to the Riptide near Longstrike and his objective. The Rune Priest split from the squad to give him another target, and sent a Jaws through his Commander and 2 Crisis Suits, but only killed a Crisis Suit. The Grey Hunters went for Longstrike, hit, penned, but the 4+ cover save was passed, unfortunately. I shot at a few Kroot, they ran back.

In his next turn, his Kroot failed to rally, but rolled low on their run roll, allowing him to then obliterate a squad of Grey Hunters closer to the Riptide for First Blood. He then killed a couple of the Grey Hunters from the Dropping squad, but only managed to wound my Rune Priest, although he just about managed to kill the Manticore before it could get a shot off.

It wasn't quite game yet though. I charged the Lone Wolf over the hill, meaning that I now had 2 packs of Grey Hunters, a Rune Priest and a Lone Wolf pressurizing his only objective. Although my Grey Huners failed the charge on Longstrike, I sent of a Jaws that, although it failed to kill either the Stealthsuit or Crisis suit under the line, got his Commander, giving me Slay the Warlord. The Lone Wolf on the right then made a successful charge into his Fire Warriors, with whom he was tied up with for the rest of the game (:facepalm:).

His Kroot then rally, which was important, and start moving back towards the board centre. In his shooting phase he then killed the Rune Priest, and had a real go at both the blob and the Lone Wolf near his objective, and although the blob lost a tonne of guys, the Lone Wolf refused to budge, passing around 25 saves in that phase without fail. With the Lone Wolf living, he then jumped his Stealthsuits across to block my Lone Wolf from charging Longstrike.

My turn 3, the squad of Grey Hunters from the Pod moved closer to the ruin under which the objective was situated, ready to charge the Pathfinders on it. The back squad of Grey Hunters then looked to assist me in ignoring the advice of last years Welsh ETC Captain (I'm so arrogant), and they shot a hole out of the stealthsuits. This meant that the Lone Wolf was now able to charge Longstrike, attempting to rob my opponent of both his prized and a scoring unit whilst giving me a point. He charges in, 2 hits, 2 penetrations at AP2, need a 5 from one of the dice....get a 6. Boom!

The Grey Hunters charge the Pathfinders, kill 2, stay locked in combat with the remaining 2 (I killed one with the Storm Bolter off the Drop Pod earlier).

At this point we can speed the game up a bit. On the middle obejctive, he moves his Kroot towards it, because of their reduced number, I try to force a morale check making them run, but because the other Lone Wolf has not done his job properly, the Ethereal is still in the Fire Warrior squad within 12" giving them Leadership 10, so they stay, and he holds that objective at the end of the game.

On my side, I have a hiding Long Fang (the only survivor from his squad) ready to jump onto my objective turn 5. Because the Lone Wolf didn't do his job properly, the Riptide jumps over, blasts him in the face and scores Linebreaker. No-one holds this.

On the top objective. He kills the Lone Wolf and the small Grey Hunter pack. Knowing that turn 5 will be the last, I attempt a charge to knock the Fire Warriors that just got out of the Devilfish off the objective and take it and Linebreaker for myself, making it a 7-6 loss. However, my Rune Priest also suffered a Perils of the Warp this turn on a double 6 slaying himself making it 8-6. However, I didn't quite get the charge (3"), and so BJ won the game 11-2.

Overall though, I'm pleased with my performance. I haven't played Tau with my Wolves before (at least, not in the new incarnation) and I was pleased to take it down to the last turn.

Game 3: Space Marines/Tau:

The final game was again on table 2. With my first game on table 1, I spent the entire tournament on the top 2 tables. The deployment was Hammer and Anvil. The mission, 5 objectives.

My opponent was running a Space Marine/Tau combo. He had a Captain with Power Fist on a bike, Artificer Armour. He had a load of Bikers, 2 tac marine squads, a squad of Terminators, a Storm Talon, a Tau Commander with Drones, Fusion Blaster. Riptide with SMS and Drones, and 6 Fire Warriors.

I was really looking for Forewarning as one of my psychic powers in this game, but as with the 2 previous games, didn't get it. However, I did get to chose the Deployment side and I got first turn. My mate from the previous game was saying that I should have gone second after I made my choice for last minute objective jump but most of the objectives were board central, so I was looking to push forward behind the hill and gain board control so that my opponent would struggle to get close to them with his combat squads.

Again I deployed the blob kind of centrally, facing the 3 central objectives with the Platoon Command behind to take the one on my side. I then flanked it with Grey Hunters and Lone Wolves, one of which was flanking on the other side of the impassible terrain, so he couldn't get around the back of me with his Bikes. The Manticore was stationed in a corner to avoid Riptide death from 72" away whilst one pack of Long Fangs was on either side of the impassible terrain.

This one will again be a blow by blow game really.

We get night fight, he seizes the initiative. Moves Terminators and Bikers forward, but the Bikes not so far forward as to lose the 2+ cover save on the boost.

I Drop down in the pod, kill a few Bikers, reduce his Captain to 1 wound, kill 2 Terminators, move the blob forward and all of the Grey Hunters and Lone Wolves. Also reduce a combat squad down to the Sergeant.

He kills my Drop Pod for First Blood and 8 of the 9 Grey Hunters. The last one runs back. He charges the Captain into the Grey Hunters, who kill him for Slay the Warlord (I would have hid him personally) and the Bikers charge the Lone Wolf and manage to kill him. The Terminators fail their charge at the Grey Hunters.  The Storm Talon comes on and fails to hurt the Manticore.

The Grey Hunter rallies, shoots his Meltagun at the last Sergeant, misses, charges and is killed on the overwatch from his Bolt Pistol. The Grey Hunters and Lone Wolf on the right charge the Terminators, reducing them to 1 guy. Blob moves forward but can't shoot anything for the hill, so runs. The Grey Hunters on the left charge the Bikers, kill 1 and lose 1.

Guard blob takes severe casulaties. Storm Talon had to jink from Long Fangs last turn so doesn't hurt the Manticore. Both the combats carry on without breaking.

A few Fire Warriors are killed and run back a little, the Sergeant finally dies. Both combats end with the Space Wolves winning, the leftmost unit moves towards one of the central objectives, whilst the rightmost squad moves into the ruins ready to jump on a central one that is further back. The Lone Wolf pushes on forwards.

Blob takes more casualties, as do the leftmost Grey Hunters that just brought down the Bikes.

Long Fangs kill 2 tac marines from my opponent's objective and the blob wipes out the combat squad threatening the central objective closest to my opponent's deployment zone. The Lone Wolf moves forward for Linebreaker.

The Stormtalon comes back on and kills 2 Guardsmen, they then suffer a few further casualties from the Riptide and remaining Marines. A Rune Priest is killed.

Long Fangs wipe him from his objective and kill the Stormtalon. The Manticore kills the Fire Warriors. The leftmost Grey Hunters move onto an objective next to the hill, the blob moves forward to take the recently cleared objective (from the previous turn), Grey Hunters on the right move onto the closest central objective and the Platoon Command squad moves back to take the objective in my deployment zone. The Lone Wolf then fails his charge into the tactical squad in the ruin.

The game ends, with a final score of 14-1 to me.

So overall I scored 30 points to 19, which I'm pleased with. 2-1 is a good result as far as I'm concerned as I felt that I'd have struggled to win in the last game even if I'd have won in game 2, which was an extremely difficult game anyway.

However, I really liked the list, it was a really enjoyable event, thanks to everyone that participated in the running of it and thanks to all of my opponents for enjoyable games. I look forward to the next one.