2k point RTT - CSM vs. Tau/CSM/Daemons

[moob]

Busy weekend! Played in the Fantasy Ard Boyz semi's on Saturday, then had a 40k RTT on Sunday. A group of stores in the Atlanta area are getting together and running their own tournament circuit series. This is the second one of the series (I ran the first one, so it's the first I participated in).

The tournament format is 3 rounds at 2,000 points. Scoring is 60% battle points, 20% painting, 20% sportsmanship. Army composition is not factored in.

There were 26 players at the event, which is a pretty good showing for a local event. Amazingly, there were no IG players in attendance. I was quite surprised at this. Just about every other book besides DE was represented. I saw:
- 6 CSM
- 3 Orks
- 1 Daemon
- 2 Necrons
- 1 Sisters
- 1 Grey Knights
- 1 Tau
- 2 Tyranids
- 2 Eldar
- 1 Blood Angels
- 5 SM
- 1 Space Wolves

Or something close to that.




I've been playing around with Tyranids again lately, but the new list I've got isn't painted, so I went to my ever faithful CSM list.

HQ:
Daemon Prince - Wings, MoS, LoS
Sorceror - Wings, MoS, LoS

Troops:
9 Zerkers - fisty champ
- Rhino w/ combi-melta
9 Zerkers - fisty champ
- Rhino w/ combi-melta
9 Zerkers - fisty champ
- Rhino w/ combi-melta
7 Plagues - 2 plasma, fisty champ
- Rhino w/ combi-melta

Heavy Support:
3 Oblits
3 Oblits
Defiler - Extra CCW (replaces autocannon)


It's done well in the past and is still one of the stronger lists out there. It has some trouble with certain versions of new IG, and all skimmer DE give me some real trouble. But it's solid, and I have a lot of experience with it. Also, neither of the spoilder lists came out to the tournament today


The tables were all set up with a good amount of terrain. Not too much, not too little.


The missions all had 3 objectives, for a score between 0 and 30.

Primary: 15/0 or 7/7 for a draw
Secondary: 10/0 or 5/5 for a draw
Tertiary: 5/0 or 2/2 for a draw

I very much like the multiple objective format. Multiple things to keep in mind during the game to get the big wins.







Round 1:

The mission was the second one from Adepticon's Gladiator.

Primary:
Modified Kill Points. 1 for troops, 2 for Elite/Heavy/Fast, 3 for HQ.
** KP's given for a selection, not unit (so if a troop had a rhino, need to kill both for 1 kp instead of 1 each)
Secondary:
Capture & Control
Tertiary:
Most units (regardless of scoring status) within 6" of the center of the board

Deployment:
Dawn of War


Special Rule:
Vortex grenade. Each person got to secretly assign one model in their army to have a vortex grenade. It could be thrown 6" in the shooting phase once per game. Anything touched was removed from the table. It then scattered 2d6" at the start of every Player turn. A roll of doubles and the vortex would vanish.
* Organizer made a house-rule that you were not allowed to lash people into the vortex grenade.


My opponent in the first round was Tau.

HQ:
Crisis Suit commander - ion blaster, frag thing
- 2 shield drones

Elites:
3 Crisis Suits - missile pod/plasma rifles, one leader with BS4
- 2 shield drones
3 Crisis Suits - missile pod/plasma rifles, one leader with BS4
- 2 shield drones
3 Crisis Suits - missile pod/plasma rifles, one leader with BS4
- 2 shield drones

Troops:
12 fire warriors - squad leader
12 fire warriors - squad leader
12 fire warriors - squad leader
12? fire warriors - squad leader
- Devilfish w/disruption pods, burst cannons I think, maybe other stuff

Heavy Support:
2 Broadsides - I think one/both were BS4?
- 2 shield drones
Hammerhead - railgun, burst cannons, disruption pods
Hammerhead - railgun, burst cannons, disruption pods


Something like that. I've always had trouble remembering all the upgrades on Tau stuff, and I didn't keep a copy anyone's lists unfortunately.



Assessment: I'd be pretty concerned about this list in 4th edition, but it's 5th now. The crisis suits aren't going to be able to JSJ with impunity behind area terrain... and he's not safe from lash with so many boots on the ground. Even one squad making it across the board will cause catastrophic damage. I don't predict much trouble from this match, especially with the modified kill point system being used - popping rhinos won't give anything without also killing the squad. I'd certainly hate to go up against an infantry chimera spam list with this setup!


Deployment: It's dawn of war. I've got my objective in the back of my DZ in the left-center, he puts his on the far left corner of his DZ. I've got some plagues with the vortex in their rhino up at the center line in the left-center. He's got his commander and a squad of FW's on the left. Another squad of FW's on the left-center. Both are back near the board edge.



CSM 1:
I drive on mostly on the left to left-center. One squad of oblits come in on the right center anticipating the hammerheads coming on over there. Plagues move up and search light the FW squad in the left center. Some defiler & oblit shooting kill a few.


Tau 1:
The tau move on with one crisis suit on the far left joining with the commander and the other two crisis suits on the left-center opposite the plague rhino, the broadsides on the center, and the hammerheads on the right. FW in devilfish are on the far right near nothing (not sure why). Other FW just to the right of the broadsides. I realize here that my opponent is pretty new, especially since he shoots in erratic order. I figure his plan is to pop the rhino since it's illuminated by the searchlights with the hammerheads then try to do some damage with the crisis suits.. but instead he shoots the crisis suits at the rhino first. Only after they fail to destroy it do the hammerheads blow it up.


CSM 2:
I move the plagues up on foot towards the suits opposite them. They're about 13-14" away. Everything else starts driving forward. The lasher is with some zerkers, and to make sure they're in lash range, I zoom its rhino forward 12" and disembark. Shooting sees me blow off the railgun to one hammerhead and kill some shield drones on the crisis suit squad on the far left.

Lash pulls one squad opposite the plagues forward, but only 5". Not enough for an assault, so they need to be lashed a second time which easily makes the charge possible.

Plague marines win combat by 4 or 5, and the suits get run down. Massacre gets into cover.


Tau 2:
Other suits jump within 6" of the plagues? Everyone else stays mostly put. The suit squad with commander can't see the plagues, so they shoot at and stun a rhino with zerkers inside. Broadsides pop a second rhino. The other remaining suit squad + 6 rapid firing warriors + 12 single shot warriors open up into the plague marines. The PFist champ survives.

Facing a plague champ with a fist, and a pair of lashers within range, he decides to assault the PFist champ with the suits. He doesn't kill me, and the shield drones make their saves vs. the PFist.


CSM 3:
The lash prince moves to join the plague marine assault. The closest zerkers whose rhino was popped moves up and the lasher jumps into their squad. Other zerkers re-embark and move towards the center. Third zerkers start moving back to my objective.

Shooting finishes off the first hammerhead. It also from the defiler at the commander squad gets it down to him + one drone, plus two suits with no drones left. They pass morale. Lasher pulls the 6 FW's into assault range.

Zerkers + sorc charge them off the board and massacre into terrain. Prince joins the other combat with the plague champ and runs down that squad (champ survived).



Rest of game summary:
His shooting is severely diminished and fails to really do anything. I then charge off the board his commander + suits, broadsides, and one FW squad. Next turn sees me kill off the remaining FW squad on foot and the second hammerhead. He conceeds when he has only the last FW squad in its fish while I'm on both objectives and have 3 squads in the center of the board including all 6 oblits. He had also yet to get a kill point in this format, since he didn't finish off the squad after blowing up the rhinos.

Vortex grenade didn't get thrown by either player.


30-0 victory.





There were quite a few 30 pt victories. Others included:
- Vulcan space marines
- Triple monolith + deceiver necrons
- Daemon-zilla
- Pedro space marines
- Dual Lash CSM (another one)
- Nids (fairly mixed list)

So there were a lot of possibilities for my round 2 opponent. I ended up drawing a mirror match.







Round 2:

The mission was the second one from Adepticon's 40k Invitational & Championship tournaments.

Primary:
Unplanned Assault - At the start of turn 4, roll a D6. The result would determine the primary objective.
1-2: Control the most terrain features.
3-4: Control the most table quarters.
5-6: Control the center. Most scoring units wholly within 12" of the center of the board.
Secondary:
Get more than 500 VP's than your opponent
Tertiary:
Kill all of your opponent's HQs.

Deployment:
Modified Dawn of War.
Instead of 24", you had 18". No restrictions from enemy units, so you could be exactly 12" apart if both players lined up right on their DZ edge exactly opposite each other. Still just up to 1 HQ & 2 troops.

Special Rule:
Play at least 6 turns, rolling for turn 7 (on a 4+) instead of the normal random game length starting after turn 5.



My opponent had a similar dual-lash CSM list.

HQ:
Daemon Prince - Wings, MoS, LoS
Sorceror - MoS, LoS

Elites:
Dread - plasma cannon
Dread - plasma cannon

Troops:
7 Plague Marines - 2 melta, PFist champ
- Rhino
7 Plague Marines - 2 plasma, PFist champ
- Rhino
8 Zerkers - PFist champ
- Rhino
8 Zerkers - PWeap champ (rode in LR)

Heavy Support:
Defiler - 2 extra CCW
Defiler - 2 extra CCW
Land Raider - Possession



Assessment: I've played mechanized dual lash vs. mechanized dual lash more than a few times already. Every time it's come down to the same thing - who can get the enemy out of their rhinos first. In a lash vs. lash fight, whoever gets to use theirs first should come out on top. I'm hoping to go first. He's got more squads with long range high strength shots, but really only the land raider will have a good shot to pop a rhino. I've got two squads of oblits for that.



We roll for first turn and he beats me. Then, surprisingly, he elects to have me go first. I gladly take it.


Deployment: I put the plague rhino without the lasher up front, mainly to have a searchlight go for anything he puts on the board. No lash in there since I didn't want to risk losing him to a seize. He holds everything back.



My 1:
The zerker rhinos all drive on in the right-center of the board. Two go 12", the other just behind them. Oblits come on on either side of them, with the defiler to the right. Lash prince is also on the right (about 16" in from the board edge). Plague rhino drives in front of the zerker ones, but not advancing beyond that.


His 1:
He's got a terrain piece about 6" wide that's pretty big/blocking in the dead center of his DZ, and he comes in on either side of it. Both zerkers (one in rhino, other in LR), 2 dreads, and one defiler on the left. Both plagues (with the lash sorc), lash prince, and the second defiler on the right. Notably, the lash prince is the full 12" forward and completely in the front (standing just in front of his lash+plague rhino), not hidden in any way.

He fails all his night fight rolls.



My 2:
I go for the lash prince this turn. I fly up my lash prince to get in range, but not get that close to his rhinos. I get around 20" from his prince. My oblits on the right move up, as does the defiler, and my rhino wall. One rhino zooms in front of the others and smokes, so that it has cover and its placement gives cover from the enemy LR & dreads / defiler. Oblits on the left shuffle forward.

My prince lashes his 8", but it's going to be just out of rapid fire range of my oblits on the right. Sorc pulls him forward enough to get the distance required. I open up with rapid firing plasma oblits, plus rapid firing plasma from the plague rhino. I end up putting 3 wounds on him, with a combi-melta from a rhino finishing it off.

Other oblits don't have a shot at anything useful, so they target a dread getting an immobilized and stun result.

One lash down, one to go.


His 2:
He moves his LR up a little, along with his dread & defiler on the left. The zerk rhino on the left starts making a run for my left-most oblits. His lash rhino moves forward to make sure he has distance to my oblits.

I believe his first mistake was giving me first turn, then his second was this - he went after my oblits this turn. He lashes them forward and into sight of his LR & non-immobilized dread. (the immobilized dread is right next to the rock feature really limiting sight for it).

He gets the lash, pulls them forward, and shoots a plasma cannon + las from LR. I make the invul against the las, then the cannon does one wound. They're still fully intact. I would have been more aggressive to try and kill off my lash prince in response to killing his.



My 3:
I target his next lasher. Oblits move up towards his plague rhino with the lasher in it. My defiler advances, as well, as does the lash prince. Other oblits get sight on said rhino, as well, concious of the charge range of the zerkers disembarking. My remaining rhinos stay mostly put.

Between the 6 oblits, I'm able to kill his rhino and get the plagues + sorc out. With two lashes, they're now getting charged by the oblits, defiler, and prince. I put two wounds on the lash sorc and kill 3-4 plagues. I lose an oblit to a plague PF.


His 3:
He *might* be at max range for his LR zerkers to counter charge, but I still have three zerker squads sitting right there so he hesitates. His defiler on the right does run forward towards the closest squad. Shooting sees the LR get one squad out, and some plasma cannons & a battle cannon from the guy on the left wittles them down to 3. Defiler on the right (now in the center) charges them off the board.

Combat sees the lash sorc killed, and the plague marines down to just 2 guys. Oblit makes invul against PFist.




Start of 4 - objective: take and hold the center. Most scoring units partially within 12" of the center wins. I've got 3 there right now, all in rhinos. He has all 4 of his troops left, but not for long.


My 4:
His plagues are going to die this turn. One of his zerkers are pretty far off to the left, and I'm going to go for them next turn. As long as I can get that defiler in the center, I've got the game won.

Two rhinos with their combi-meltas left move within 6" of the defiler. Oblits on the left move to within 12" of the zerker rhino. They shoot multi-meltas at it and explode it. 2 die to the blast. They deploy right on the edge of the crater, probably about 9" away (I moved a little too close to be sure I had double penetration range). I use my lash sorc to get them out of charge range, it goes off but only 3".. if they get a 6" terrain roll, it'll be go time for the oblits.

On the bright side, a combi-melta pops the center defiler.

In combat, the enemy plagues are wiped out.


His 4:
He moves his zerkers up, but only gets 4" for terrain. They're going to be shy.

He decides now to go for my remaining oblits & the lash prince. It's a little late now, especially since he's using the zerkers in the LR to do it. So he's sacrificing a troop unit for non-troops after the objective has been revealed. He moves the LR up 6" and disembarks. His remaining plagues (who have plasma) move up and disembark right at the 12" mark from my lash prince. Shooting from the plagues + 1 las from LR sees the lash prince take 3 wounds with one remaining. Pistols do 2 to the oblits, leaving 1 with 1 wound remaining. Zerkers in terrain need a 5 to make assault but don't get it.



My 5:
I ignore the plagues this turn, since it'll be easier to kill off both zerkers instead. I disembark one of my zerk squads to charge, but only after lashing them out of terrain first. I shoot plasma from my plagues still in their rhino as well as one oblit, killing a few. Defiler shoots at the plagues for fun, killing a few.

I lash the other zerkers out of the crater and open up with the oblits there. They kill 4, then charge and kill the remaining two. I also charge the ones in the center with the lash prince & one of my full squads and kill them.


His 5:
His remaining plagues re-embark. They + LR kill off the lash prince.



My 6:
Plagues get out to charge the dread, since it will mean they're safe from plasma (it had the CCW weapon ripped off earlier in the fight somewhere). Oblits on left move up and kill the defiler over there. Shooting from defiler stuns the plague rhino.


His 6:
Nothing really to do. LR shoots, but nothing effective happens.


Game ends.


I have 3 troops to 1 in the center, I'm well up on VP's. I've lost only lash prince, 1 zerker squad, half an oblit squad, half a defiler, and a rhino. He lost a lash prince, lash sorc, 2 zerker squads, 2 defilers, 1 dread (two individual damaged ones), 1.5 plague squads, and 2 rhinos. I also killed off both his HQ's while having one of mine survive.


30-0 victory.







Two of the other players with 30 pt wins in round 1 got another 30 pt win in round 2. So I'll be matched up against one of those (or paired down to the next highest). The other two 60 pt players are:
- Triple monolith + deceiver necrons
- Daemon-zilla

I played a practice game against the monolith list a few days prior, and it was a very tough game. It ended up being a draw in an objective mission. Kill point wise, I don't stand a chance unless he gets careless and exposes his troops... but he's a skilled player and I doubt I'd get that lucky. So I'm hoping to go up against someone else.

They end up deciding the pairing by having the two players with the highest paint scores matched. That ended up me and the daemon list, with the necron player paired down to someone with 55 points.







Round 3:

The mission was the third one from Adepticon's 40k Invitational & Championship tournaments.

Primary:
Seize ground (4 objectives)
Secondary:
Get more than 750 VP's than your opponent
Tertiary:
Have a unit (regardless of scoring status) in each of the 4 table quarters at the end of the game.

Deployment:
Spearhead

Special Rule:
None.


My last opponent's daemon list consisted of...

HQ:
Kairos Fateweaver
Skarbrand

Elite:
6 Bloodcrushers - Musician, Rending

Troops:
5 Horrors - changeling, bolt
5 plaguebearers - icon
5 plaguebearers - icon
5 plaguebearers
5 plaguebearers

Heavy Support:
Daemon Prince - MoN, Wings, Noxious Touch, Cloud of Flies
Daemon Prince - MoN, Wings, Noxious Touch, Cloud of Flies
Daemon Prince - MoN, Wings, Noxious Touch, Cloud of Flies



Assessment: I've played against daemons before, but not this flavor. I'm still pretty confident that I can do well assuming there aren't any rounds with a bizzarely high amount of invul saves made. Plan is the lash princes / crushers away from kairos to shoot at. Then, after things have been whittled down a bit, while staying relatively safe in rhinos, charge things with multiple zerker squads. I just have to make sure I don't get too hemmed in by his big stuff that I don't have time to get his guys off objectives. Also, this is my first time playing against Skarbrand - I'm having a hard time before the game figuring out how much of an impact he'll have on everyone's charges.

It will turn out to be quite a lot.

By the by, for anyone who doesn't know what all the daemon stuff does, the nurgle princes have 5 attacks on the charge with WS7.. so they'll most likely be hitting on 3's with a reroll from Skarbrand. Then noxious touch wounds on 2+ and they get rerolls to wound against anyone T5 or less. Then they have a 3+/5++ save and if they're within 6" of Kairos, get to reroll that, too. Heh.



Deployment: The objectives form a line with one roughly on the center point.. then another about 15" away towards the top-left corner, and one on the same line near the bottom right corner. The last is placed at roughly the center line but halfway between the center and the bottom board edge.

I win the roll for first and take it, selecting the bottom right corner. This puts one objective in my backfield, and one on the left side of my DZ. Then the others are in the center and one in his corner (but not as far back as the one in mine).

I don't really want to go first, but I wanted my selection of a DZ. I didn't want to have to push out of my DZ to get to objectives.

I deploy my rhinos along a semi-circle from the center point. Oblits are between them, with the defiler and lash prince in the back.



CSM 1:
I move up slightly, getting a little closer to the center but otherwise don't do much.


Daemon 1:
He chooses Kairos, Skarbrand, Crushers, and 3 princes as his preferred wave. He's primarily a khorne daemon player and it seems that Khorne is displeased with his new list - that I actually have more Khornate units than him, so he fails his 3+ roll. That's about game right there, especially if he trickles in at all. If Kairos drops late, especially if Skarbrand drops right off the bat, it's totally over.

As it is, he spreads out his troops. He puts them in the far corners, which keeps me from killing too many right off the bat, but they are far from the objectives.. except the horror unit which drops in his corner somewhat close to that one. One plague unit with an icon drops in the bottom left corner, but near the center line. The other drops behind me and scatters backwards. It literally comes within 0.5" from the board edge, but manages to get placed.



CSM 2:
My objective this turn is to kill his two units with icons, especially the one behind me. Last thing I want is for him to have an icon to appear in my backfield all together. This would allow him to land close without risk of scatter, and my oblits will be on the wrong side of the rhinos. So the defiler and the lash prince jump back to deal with them, but they're still about 9-10" away so it will require a lash before charging.

The other lasher moves to clump up his second icon unit after it ran to spread out. Oblits move to shoot them.

Both lashes work, but there's a big problem. The one on the squad in my backfield only gets 2". They are out of charge range of the lash prince. The other squad gets shot down to 1 model, with the icon dying to wound allocation.

Defiler, with the fleet roll, makes the charge to the plaguebearers... but he alone isn't able to kill the squad. The icon persists.


Daemon 2:
He rolls in his reserves and gets Kairos, the Bloodcrushers, and all three nurgle princes. The only thing that doesn't drop in is Skarbrand. This is trouble. The game is back on.

He's able to land them all off the icon, with everyone protected by Kairos despite the proximity of the defiler and lash prince. Crushers are in the front, with everyone else just behind them. Kairos shoots gaze and mutation at the prince, but he escapes damage. He shoots bolt at a rhino, too, but fails to do damage.

Combat with the defiler continues.



CSM 3:
There's no way for the lash prince to escape a charge. There are too many things around him, with three nurgle princes able to fly, too. So I jump him further back to my corner in the opposite direction of everything else.

I then have the rhinos start driving away in the other direction. I have a choice here... go for his troops, or start working on his big guys. I figure that with him behind me, I could easily kill off his troops before he can stop me, but he'll use that time to get on all the objectives with everything else and I won't be able to get him off.

So I decide to go after his crushers this turn. My oblits back up a bit (out of threat range of the nurgle princes), and the rhinos move away as well. Lash prince pulls kairos into the corner with him, preparing to assault.

Lash sorc pulls the crushers into the open and clumps them up. Oblits shoot plasma cannons at them, then all four rhinos shoot combi-meltas, the plagues shoot their two plasma out the top hatch, and some random pistols from zerkers / bolters from rhinos. Despite this shooting & no kairos protection, two survive. The champion made 4 of 4 5+ invul saves, too. Bah. That will cost me a squad of oblits.

Lash prince charges kairos, they don't hurt each other.

Defiler continues to fight the plaguebearers. 2 left, icon & 1 other.


Daemon 3:
Skarbrand lands off the icon, too. Crushers move to charge some oblits. One prince moves to save Kairos, and the other two don't want to get charged by my zerkers - not without Kairos protection, so they move to assault the defiler and save his troop squad in the back. Changeling horrors kill an oblit from squad not being charged by crushers with bolt.

Crushers kill 2 of the oblits, take one wound in return. Nurgle princes hit 9 of 10 times with a 3+ reroll from Skarbrand, but roll poorly and only get 1 pen and 2 glances. They immobilize the defiler, but it survives. Defiler kills 1 more plague bearer, just one is left.

My lash prince is killed by the nurgle prince. Reroll 4's to hit followed by reroll 2's to wound is ugly.


CSM 4:
Well, he was delayed a turn with the Kairos lock, I've gotta get rid of those crushers and also get rid of the horror unit & wounded plaguebearer near the far objective. I'm going to have to get that last plaguebearer fighting the defiler, since that will most likely not survive the combat this turn, but that I'll worry about later. The other two are very far from objectives and aren't a threat for a while to get to one.

I back up further, I can't risk charging him since I'll only get to charge one of his big guys then get countercharged by the rest. I do have one zerker squad get out and move to where they can just hit the crushers fighting the oblit.. then they'll massacre out of range of his counter charge.

Lasher moves to lash the changeling horror squad while the plagues move and disembark to shoot down the last of the wounded plaguebearer unit. Things go as planned and I kill the wounded PB unit, the changeling horrors, and the crushers fighting the single oblit.

Unexpectedly, though, the two nurgle princes still fail to kill the defiler... but they do rip off two weapons. It doesn't kill the last PB guy, though.

As an aside, I'm pretty shocked at how much harder the zerkers charge with rerolls to hit from Skarbrand. Rerolling 4's to hit vs. crushers & DP's will really put down a hurting.


Daemon 4:
Frustrated with the defiler, Skarbrand moves to dispose of it once and for all. Kairos moves back up in the center of the action, along with the other nurgle prince. Kairos rips a weapon off a rhino with bolt. Skarbrand obliterates the defiler. His last troop moves towards the objective in my DZ.



CSM 5:
Okay, so this could be the last turn. It's not possible for me to win the secondary (750+ VP's), but I need to work on the other ones. My plagues in their rhino move to the objective that the horrors were near. Zerkers that killed the crushers move to assault the plaguebearers that dropped on the top right and have been moving towards the objectives... they will *just* be in range without a lash, thankfully. The oblits move and are able to get sight to the last plaguebearer in my DZ. Again not needing a lash, which is good since that would have been a suicide lash to get close enough to it. Other zerkers in their rhinos move to make sure they are in different quarters than everyone else.

Lasher pushes back the closest DP. Oblits snipe the plaguebearer in the back. Zerkers kill the PB unit on the top right.


Daemon 5:
His last troop unit, PB's in the bottom left, are running toward the objective my plagues are on. His MC wall are now making a rush towards the center. Shooting pops a zerker rhino.


If the game ends, I'm on 1 objective to 0 and in 4 quarters. Game continues.



CSM 6:
His DP's are perilously close to being able to contest my objective if they get a 6" run move.. So I decide to have a zerker squad each charge a DP while lashing the third one away. One zerker squad will be combi-charging Kairos, too. Plagues disembark, staying within 3" of the objective, to shoot at his PB which are now also threatening to contest my objective. Between the plagues and the oblits, I am able to kill off the last PB squad.

Lash again goes off, and pushes the furthest DP further away. One zerker squad charges one DP. Other zerker squad charges DP (putting fist + 1 zerker on him) and Kairos (getting 7 zerkers on him). Cloud of flies steals my charging attacks.

I resolve the Kairos fight first, in case I get lucky. His DP is simultaneous with my furious charge zerkers and he rolls poorly and only kills 2. I put one wound on him with my regular guy. Then I get 21 attacks with rerolling 3's to hit followed by 4's to wound. I roll above average and cause around 12 wounds. Kairos actually flat out dies. My power fist then causes another wound to the DP. I win combat by 3, and he fails one save. I've lost 2 zerkers (7 left), his prince has 1 wound left.

Other combat sees his DP kill 4 (5 left) and take 2 wounds in return. I make my no retreat saves.


Daemon 6:
Skarbrand countercharges the 7 man squad, the far DP counter charges the squad with 5 left. Both zerker squads are killed before they can swing. Skarbrand himself kills all 7.


If the game ends, I'm on 1 objective to 0 and in only 3 quarters (he just killed me out of my DZ). Game continues.



CSM 7:
My last zerk squad moves to charge his unwounded prince. The 2 and 1 oblit squads move to shoot the prince with 2 wounds off (the one with 1 wound left was hidden). The rhino the zerkers got out zooms into top right corner. Plagues stay on objective, their rhino zooms into bottom left corner. The lasher gets out of the rhino he was in (empty except for him) and jumps 12" to get into my DZ. The rhino then zooms 12" into my DZ, too. I would have preferred to stay in the rhino so he couldn't kill both because he had no shooting, but I wasn't positive that 6" would have gotten me fully into that quarter.

Oblits kill the 2 wound prince. Lash pulls other prince away so that there's no possibility it can contest my objective. Zerkers charge unwounded prince. It kills 3 (there were 7 to start, it had been shot by daemonic gaze from Kairos earlier). My return attacks put 2 wounds on the prince.


Daemon 7:
In an attempt to secure VP, Skarbrand moves to kill the 2 man oblit squad (225 pts) while the prince with 3 wounds off of it moves to save the other DP. The two DP's kill the zerkers before they can swing again, and skarbrand explodes the 2 oblits.

VP's are very close to each other, nobody is close to having the 750 pt difference.

I do have rhinos in three quarters and some PM's in the other, who are an uncontested objective (and are the only troops left on the board for either side). I get primary and tertiary, we draw secondary.


25-5.



The necron player went up against some new Space Wolves, who had a thunder hammer wolf lord on a thunderwolf mount, some fenris wolves, two LR redeemers with guys inside, a rune priest, some missile long fangs, a scout squad, and some more random SW squads. The necron player apparently had no trouble dealing with the new wolves and picked up his third max 30 pt win. Fortunately, my painting score was high enough to get me over the 5 VP difference.

I squeeked out best overall while he took best general.

[The Prince of Excess]

Wow Necrons with best General? Either that guy is a god or he was getting a lot going his way.

Nice writeup, very easy read. I'm constantly amazed people don't have a firm game plan against dual Lash Rush, although yours is a bit different with all the Zerkers.

Gratz on the win.

[moob]

Thanks - the guy who played Necrons is a very skilled player. Plus, his list was something that is really quite difficult for most armies to face. It was...

HQ:
Deceiver

Troops:
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
10 Warriors

Heavy Support:
Monolith
Monolith
Monolith

Fast Attack:
3 Destroyers
3 Destroyers
3 Destroyers


The warriors start in reserve and walk on late in the game. This helps him avoid phase out, since he phases at 9 and he's got warriors in reserve typically until turn 4 in most games. Plus, by that time, you're typically busy trying to fight off the Deceiver and the triple monoliths.


He went up against a dual lash player in the first round, which is a difficult match-up for him in an objective game, but it was kill points... and trust me, the CSM want nothing to do with those necrons in a kill point mission.

Second was against a marine player, where the opponent wasn't familiar with the Deceiver at all. He baited his opponent to deploy 12" away in the modified Dawn of War mission from warriors.. then did the grand illusion to move the warriors away and put the deceiver in their place to charge on turn 1. Big D in that game personally killed a scout squad, triple las cannon pred, tact squad, and 2 stern guard squads by himself.

Last game was against space wolves, who didn't have anything to combat the deceiver + monolith combination.

[The Prince of Excess]

It's a lot of luck though. In straight objective games he'd be very screwed but your RTT had a lot of mixed games. If he comes out to early, he's going to lose pretty badly and neither he or his opponent control that.

It's a 4th Ed list that worked because of how the tournament was set up, with the multiple ways to get points. Not that hard to beat in a regular game, except KPs unless you roll with a few Demolisher Cannons.

Did the SW guy run no Rune Priests or TW Cav? If he was rocking a good amount of those he could have tabled him.

[moob]

His list is only easy to beat in objective missions if you can destroy the monoliths. If you cannot, he'll try and grab one while using the liths / deceiver to contest all the others. I played a test game against it in a seize ground mission and it ended up a draw.


The SW player had one runepriest, but that didn't help at all.. The destroyers are jetbikes, so they're immune to jaws as are the liths, Deceiver only fails on a 6. The warriors walked on the board on the opposite side and were safe from him.

No thunderwolf cav unit, but he did have a wolf lord on a thunderwolf mount. He tried to charge the deceiver at one point, but big D misdirected and then all the destroyers opened up and killed him.

The Deceiver misdirected towards a land raider and exploded that, while one of the S9 AP1 ordnance templates from the monoliths destroyed the other LR. At that point, he was stuck in the middle trying to use meltas and PFists at the monolith (beyond useless).. deceiver did die at some point, but the monolith templates killed him off almost to a man.

[The Prince of Excess]

Yeah he should have brought at least two RPs at 2000 and protected them until the Warriors showed, than he could have been killing off a good amount per turn.

SW lists without TW Cav are just vanilla Marines with good Librarians in the big picture. That guys own fault.

[antique_nova]

hmm, i ain't a fan of the TW cav. but i don't know how effective they are are 2000 points. i like to paly an all pod wolf force. and land something like 6-7 pods in first turn.
EDIT: Nice clear easy to read report. pics would have been nice though. i can only read so much text.
thanks
antique_nova

[The Prince of Excess]

All Pod armies are quickly becoming less and less effective. They're a very easy counter that any army can pull off. Half and half is the way to use Pods, it takes out almost all of the inherent weaknesses an all pod army has and keeps the strengths. The guys who played all Pod at the independent GT here littered the bottom of the finishings.

TW Cav are a must play above 1500, they're very hard to kill unless you walk them in front of a ton of Rapid Fire guns and the multiple S10 attacks per model (if they don't have TH you're doing it wrong) give great anti-armor and fear factor. They'll become SW best unit after the RP FAQ comes out.

[jy2]

Great games and batrep as usual. It's always a pleasure to read your batreps. Seems like CSM is still the team to beat. I'm surprised orks or mechdar isn't in the top tiers of the tourney.

The wolves will be great once people get more experience with them, but in a tourney build, you're going to need 2-3 rune priests (and maybe even 4!) to dominate. TWC's are great, but not so against a c'tan. They're expensive and will be insta-killed with no saves whatsoever by the deceiver.

Good thing you didn't have to face the new Guards. They could be devastating if done right (as witnessed by the winner of the 'Ard Boyz finals). In his very last game, he beat an ork army with 40 nobz (and all 3 of his games lasted no more than 1 hour)!

[The Prince of Excess]

Actually the Deceiver doesn't inst-gib them, he's Str9. He's also only WS5 but I can't remember if they are to or not. Two squads of three against the Deceiver, it'd be wise of him to run.

They don't need to fight him though, they have fleet and 12" charges. 1 Deceiver cannot babysit 3 Monoliths realistically, so you can kill two Monoliths over the course of the game easily with two units. They're expensive but it's 2000 points, why not bring them?

Guard does pretty much own CSM though, you're both right on that account.