Adepticon Team Tourney Recap - BEER FOR THE BEER GOD!

Hey all!

So having returned from Adepticon last week, I can safely start looking other directions for armys and playtesting. The new Tau book seems to hold a lot of promise, I've been thinking of ways to combo them with my orks to shore up my long range fire support, most likely removing my lootas. Also been thinking of ways to combo them with Chaos SM. But we'll save that conversation for another post. Lets recap Adepticon! This post, the Team Tourney, next post will be the GT.

For those who don't want to read through, our team got 22nd out of I think 125 or 130 teams. We were in a very close points gap, and easily could have gotten into the top ten with a few better games. We were aiming for Best Heretical (a runner up award for best Chaos army closest to first) and unfortunately I flubbed our last two games big time costing us that victory. I'm pointing out now that I personally cost us this, my team-mates all played excellent games to the best of their abilities and won lots of points. In the last two rounds I flubbed things like flying in a helldrake, and promptly forgetting to use its vector strike, and then its flame thrower, which definitely tipped the balance of the game. Shame on me (seriously I feel awful about it).

Each game in the event was worth up to 25 primary points, earned for completing primary objectives, and up to 6 secondary points, earned for completing each of the three secondary objectives, as well as 8 alternative points, earned for not using twists of fate. Twists of fate had random effects every round, for example, in round 1, it granted units holding it skyfire, in different round, it gave adamantium will.

The Team!

Eric, James, Tim, Owen
Tim made the badass Beer God Sign

more of us

The armies, Eric made the display board and painted "The Purge", I painted
the other half, "Black Brethern of Ayreas"



The Overal Results
Beer for the Beer God

ROUND 1 - FIGHT
Round 1 was vs. what I would consider our worst match up possible. Necron Airforce. The issue being, our armies are designed to assault the bloody hell out of things. Luckily, round 1 the twists allowed us to use skyfire, which we gave to melta/plasma toting plague marines (and was quite effective).
Primary Missions, Objectives, Kill points
Hammer and Anvil
Pairings for this round were Eric / James, Owen / Tim.

Table 1, Eric and James

I forgot to take deployment pics, so this is about halfway through the game. We've shot down a night scythe or two, and otherwise have moved forward outside of their shooty arcs of fire. At this stage, we were very close to eliminating almost all of their active ground elements, which were just hiding in the bastion at this point. In the late game, we consolidated onto objectives and managed to hold / contest as needed giving us the win on both Objectives and Killpoints.

Table 2, Owen and Tim

Tim and Owen got pummeled really badly. I'll leave it there.


ROUND 2

Table Quarters, Kill Points (this is going to be a re-occurring theme)
Vanguard
Eric / Owen
Tim / James
Twists in this game allowed capturing of a quarter without your allied troop also being present, or contesting similarly.

Our opposition - Blood Angels and Vanilla S/M with forgeworld units.

We get first turn, deploy in this arc to use the hill for LOS blockage. The important take away from our opponents army is that they have a Contemptor dread. One of those assholes with two 6 shot assault cannons, a missile launcher, skyfire and interceptor. Not to mention is armor 13, and has an invuln save. Our entire policy of getting across the board is to avoid getting shot to pieces by him.

 

 

 We move up as shown. Top of 1. Some random melta shots manage to kill a few bikers and importantly, a melta guy from their assault squad.

This was turn 3 I think. My helldrake has come on, killed a few guys, and departed as quickly. We attempted a valiant charge across the board, tying up our opponent in their own quarter while keeping our scoring units back to hold our three quarters. They sent an assault squad w/ a libby + sang priest across the board, and in this photo you can see them tied up with some plague marines in the bottom right.

Towards the end of the game, note the Stormraven has ceased to be, much like my helldrake. It was assaulted by a hellbrute after hovering to try and wipe out my plague marine squad (thus denying us a quarter). It was a long shot, but they needed to take it. Note our huge blob of cultists occupying backfield. Thank goodness for LOS blockage. The plague marines eventually lost out to the assault libby / priest deathstar, but were shot in the face by my plague marines upon getting free and died. I have a hellbrute in their backfield terrorizing their Twist holding squad, as well as a juggy lord who has now won several challenges and is a T6, Instant Death, Shredding, Re-roll failed saves boss. Tim's lord became a spawn, side note, and ran away for all it was worth (and managed to live)

Net result - Total win for us, and for Eric / Owen.

 

 

 ROUND 3
Dawn of War
Relic / Kill points
Night Fight

Eric / Tim
James / Owen

Our opposition was an opposing Chaos SM / Chaos Deamons army. On my board my opponents each had a Juggy Lord w/ axe, two 20ish man blob squads of khorne marked marines, a bunch of cultists, and two helldrakes w/ baleflamers + 3 squads of 3 nurgle marked oblits. A rather rough battle for us to say the least.
I decided to be dickish with the terrain and put this huge los blocking ruin in the middle with the relic.

Owen and I deployed as visible below. Our aim - Scoot up with Owens plague marines first turn grabbing the relic, using our fast spawn and maulerfiends to form a wall to prevent them from being assaulted. Then back away with the relic with his plague marines, protecting them in his rhino while getting on the board edge to reduce the damage our opponents helldrakes could do.

Eric and Tim's deployment. I don't know what was going on so I'm not going to speculate.

This cluster-fuck happened on turn 2. One of our opponents helldrakes came on destroying my rhino giving them first blood, however they failed to remove the relic from our plaguish grasp. There is a massive combat in the middle involving my juggy lord / spawn, my mauler fiend, and their units.

 Combat as described closer up.

I ended up losing all my spawn and the maulerfiend. The purple squad w/ juggy lord were counter-assaulted by Owens nurgle spawn and maulerfiend. My hellbrute and Owens jump pack axe lord jump into the combat with my juggy lord to prevent allowing re-rolls for my opponent (as it was just my juggy lord in a duel vs. his juggy lord at that point), and also to save the day by killing off all the troops while the killing was good.
The end result of this game, we won with the relic and on kill points. We shot down a helldrake with snap fire melta-guns. My helldrake didn't even come on till the game was well over.My juggy lord, after bossing his way through the first juggy lord and a sarge, became a spawn in combat vs. the second juggy lords squad Sergeant. He ran away like a little girl and we considered him "dead" for our opponents slay the warlord objective. Owens warlord saved the day and bosses his way through a bunch of squads to earn us the KP we needed.

ROUND 4
Dawn of war
Objectives, Kill points from "marked for death" side. (meaning only kill points from a particular persons 1k list counted).
Twists gave something stupid.
James / Tim, Eric / Owen

 We gave our opponents first turn and deployed as such, the goal being to avoid the first turn of the flyrants shooting, which we were more or less successful at. This game went steadily down hill for me as I proceeded to fail about 25 4+ and 2 3+ saves in a row, resulting in me losing my entire spawn squad and taking 2 wounds on the juggy lord, in a single round of shooting. It was a close thing though even towards the very end. We tied one of the primary objectives, and lost the other, don't remember which we got though. I think it was objectives we tied, 2-2.


ROUND 5
Dawn of War
Only one primary objective, that is, objectives, each one captured was worth 5 points. Elites count as scoring
James / Owen
Eric / Tim

This game was about as negative in rolling as the my game vs. the tyranids for me. We ended up losing, giving them three of the five objectives and none for ourselves. We were unable to shoot down their helldrakes and they flew around from turn 2 onwards and effectively cleared almost all of our army for them. My own helldrake died the turn after it arrived to meltagun snap fire.

Bad rolling let the combat in the middle drag out when we needed our heavy assault units to go chase down their troops.

 
Turn 3ish.

The real issue with this game, aside from me whining as we all do about dice rolls, is we simply didn't have an answer for two helldrakes actively flaming us from turn two onwards nonstop. It's a list flaw and I'm not going to let it occur again. It felt very helpless, not going to lie.

These guys won it all for the second year running. Essentially blowing everyone else out of the water as far as the points level goes. Congrats to

They Shall Know Fear.

 

Brad, Aaron, Nick and Andrew

 

As a side note, I've had a chance to interact a good bit with Nick and Andrew, and these two are fantastic guys, inside and outside the game. Brad was my first round opponent at Adepticon GT this year, and while I can feel super-ultra proud of myself for destroying his two guard blobs + almost all of his space marines, he still won our game. He has some skillz. Aaron I don't know very well but I hear good things.

 

Results of Huzzah Hobbies RTT April 14th.

Good Morning All!

So we had a good day on Sunday, a good number of people turned up to play some adepticon missions for our RTT at Huzzah Hobbies. We used Battle Points based on the missions packet, i.e. 10 for one objective 1, 20 for 2, and 2 points per secondary objective achieved. The spread ended up being really close at the end with a few players on the top tables all going a game or so only getting minor wins instead of full points.

We did this event on a Sunday, as people actually turned up (something I was dubious about), we will proceed with Sunday being the primary day for the RTT. I'll post up in the near future the next date, but expect it once a month on a Sunday towards the middle of the month.

We played in order
Dawn of War - Objectives  / KP's
Vanguard - Relic / Objectives
Hammer and Anvil - Objectives / KP's.

Our first place went to Matt S, with the crazy seer council eldar list
Second to Eric H with his wraith spam
Third and fourth were tied between Lance and Wilson, with Lance winning additional prize support for best sportsmanship / best painted combined. Lance has a beautifuly painted eldar army with a top notch displayboard that includes a real waterfall and live plants. Wilson ran a beatface hardcore assault khorne dog list.

The winners!

Reminder! RTT at Huzzah Hobbies April 14th!

Hey all


I just wanted to remind every there will be an RTT at Huzzah Hobbies this weekend (april 14th).

The entry fee will be 15$.

Lunch will be provided, pizza and a few sodas / drinks!

Registration is at 10:30, games start at 11.

You may use your own dice for this event.

1850 points.

Originally we had planned on using the NOVA open primer for this event, however, given that people wanted to practice for Adepticon, we will be using the Adepticon Primer for missions. This includes using the Adepticon FAQ for rulings.

Please sign up ahead of time by calling Huzzah Hobbies at 703-466-0460. Signup is not required but is suggested.

There will be more than enough room to host as many people show up, so feel free to come and bring friends!

Showcase Comics RTT March 30th

Greets all,


Life being the hectic tsunami that it is, has prevented me from updating lately. I found myself with some time this morning and decided to update on recent playtests with the chaos book, as well as an RTT I attended at Showcase Comics and how that went.

So first the RTT.

So we drove three hours to attend the monthly Showcase Comics RTT in Media Penn. This was the second RTT of theirs I've attended, and of course SVDM which was a blast.

So let me say, I forgot to take pictures or keep army lists from my opponents.  So I'm doing each turn completely from memory, apologies in advance if I forgot something, get something wrong or otherwise.

This was at 2k, the army I brought was....

Chaos SM w/ Daemon Allies

HQ
Juggy lord w/ Axe, sigil, meltabomb, mutation,
Nurgle lord on bike w/ black mace, meltabomb, mutation, sigil, blight grenades

Troops
3x 10 autogun cultists  (idea is to help shoot down flying MC's or additional fire support)

Fast Attack
1x Baleflamer dragon (autotake at least one, lets be fair, i kinda need him in order to make ChaosSM decently viable, apologies though MEQ armies)
2x5 nurgle spawn

Heavy Support
1x1 Nurgle Oblit
2x1 Maulerfiend w/ magmacutters

Allies

HQ
Nurgle Herald w/ greater gift, lesser gift, psyker level 1, palequin of nurgle, FNP Locus

Troops
1x10 Plaguebearers

Fast Attack
1x5 Plague Drones

Heavy Support
1x1 Skull Cannon


Game 1 vs. Daemons of Chaos! Kill points Primary
Vanguard Deployment, no night fight

My opponent had..

3x1 Tzeentch Heralds, w/ gifts, psyker level 3, locus to give +1 S to powers
1x1 Khorne herald, juggy, greater gift, w/ gifts
1x1 Great Unclean One, psyker level 3, exaulted gift,

3x18(rougly around that), pink horrors
1x20 Deamonnetes w/ allures, banner of some sort

1x20 Khorne dogs

Aegis line w/ quad gun.

My opponent got a really good selection of powers, all of his tzeentch heralds took one tzeentch power and 2 divination powers. Two squads got prescience and ignore cover (really good for him!) and the third got prescience and the 4+ invuln save ability. The GUO got enfeeble and some other biomancy powers he never really got to cast, details why in a few. The GUO also took the book to enhance or reduce invuln saves.

I got a boon of mutation to give my Nurgle lord have +1 attack, and the juggy lord was apparently not worthy and rolled a nothing. My herald took the instant-death balesword and cleaving strikes (2x S on a 6).

My opponent gave himself first go, set up the Aegis line at about the 24 inch point, and then set up just behind that. He used his GUO in the dead center, and one one side the daemmonettes, the other the khorne dogs w/ khorne lord. The pink horrors hung out behind in their massive blobbyness, but stretched a thin line forward in order to get the needed single model into LOS / range for shooting.

I set up with the maulerfiends and a spawn squad directly across from the daemmonettes, and set everything else up in front of the khorne dogs. Everything except the maulerfiends was about 30 inches away, so he couldn't walk forward and dakka me first turn. Game plan being, only let him get one round of shooting off on me before i assault, not two. As my army is all fast moving guys, It should be very easy to accomplish that.

Turn 1

All his stuff moves forward, fires ineffectually at the maulerfiend in range.

I move all my stuff forward, a maulerfiend and a spawn  squad set up to charge the daemonnettes and the other maulerfiend at a very exposed pink horror squad (in the hope to wipe them  or tie them up out, then in the follow turn be inside of his line and cause havoc the rest of the game). The skull cannon pounds a squad of horrors killing 8 or so.
I roll my charges, I only need about 7 to 8 inch charges, even with fleet, only one maulerfiend makes it to the daemonnetes.

Turn 2
His guys moved forward, khorne dogs screening the other two squads of pink horrors. Some shooting kills 3 of my exposed nurgle spawn from one squad, and two from the other squad. His GUO casts enfeeble but I deny the witch. The GUO then charges the exposed maulerfiend who failed his charge, and the daemmonettes charge the squad with 3 spawn in it.  The maulerfiend holds his own, putting a wound on the GUO, and spawn teniously survive, and kill a few daemmonnettes in the process.

My go, remaining spawn not in combat and plague drones and juggy lord move into position to assault khorne dogs. The black mace lord sets up next to the GUO to prepare for assault. With careful positioning i make sure the closest to closest aspect of that charge will involve plenty of daemmonnettes being within 3 inches of the base. Some reserves arrive, notably the baledragon and plague bearers. Plaguebearers deep strike far backfield onto the secondary objectives. The dragon flies over a pink horror squad vector striking (does nothing).
The skull cannon blasts another handful of pink horrors back into the warp. The oblit wiffs ineffectually at something or other. Dragon kills 1 or 2 pink horrors with his flamer (lots of saves passed!)

Charges are all successful. The GUO explodes into a delightfully messy goo due to black maces fleshbane and ton of attacks from the lord (in a challenge of course) striking first!  The Mace lord becomes T7, woo ! A few of daemmonnettes in the combat nearby also explode into a fine mist with toughness tests.
Maulerfiend and bike lord massacre towards remaining pink horrors. The spawn in combat with daemmonnettes die. The khorne dogs (who have a 2+ invuln atm), essentially tie combat with the plague drones and spawn. This combat will go on essentially the rest of the game. Juggy lord who issued a challenge manages to punch himself in the face, after failing a dangerous terrain test, so only two wounds remaining...

Turn 3
Deammonnettes attempt to charge in with mace lord or run, can't remember which, net result is it doesn't end up happening. Maulerfiend lives through shooting, and the dragon is the subject of lots of gun fire from pink horrors, manages to get a weapon destroyed result... woo....
Combat with dogs and drones drags onwards

My turn, dragon flies forward doing some vector strike damage to pink horrors. Black mace lord charges into a squad of pink horrors, again positioning to maxamize blowing up of other models. Maulerfiend charges a different squad of pink horrors. Skull cannon blows up some more pink horrors from squad 3. Oblit moves forward and assault cannons the deammonnette squad.
Lots of pink horrors die this turn, they were not missed!
At this point, the deamonnette squad only had a few models left I think.
Combat drags on

Turn 4
At this point, the game being KP my opponent decides to use the remaining shooty squad he has to blast at the dragon, who either denied the witch or something.. but nothing happened is the net result. Everything else is pretty much locked in combat. Combat drags on with the khorne dogs, who are now slowly winning, but can't manage to kill the nurgle spawn. Deammonnettes decide its time to be brave, and assault the nurgle lord who is in combat with just a few pink horrors. Nurgle Lord dies but not being removing all but 1 or 2 models from the pink horrors and deammonnettes. Rot rot glorious rot kills one of my cultist squads.

My turn, maulerfiend kills more in his combat, the squad is almost gone now (thanks to instability).
My remaining reserves come on, i throw one cultist onto a secondary objective, the other I put near my opponents deamonnettes.  The cultists near the deamonnettes shoot them down. Oblit moves forward shooting at the pink horrors surviving, reducing it to one model.
Khorne dogs are now just biting at a single nurgle spawn. Everything else has bit the dust.

Turn 5
So at this point, my opponent has a pink horror squad w/ herald thats about half strength, a pink horror locked in combat with a maulerfiend, a single pink horror by himself and the khorne dogs w/ herald biting a single spawn. I have an oblit, 2 cultist squads, plaguebearers, a skull cannon, the dragon, and a maulerfiend.  Its time to figure out kp and go for the win (on both sides). He decides to shoot the pink horror squad to get another kill point, and whatever went on, it ended up not doing anything. BUT! the Khorne herald finally kills the last nurgle spawn. The squad massacres to the board middle. But also good news for me! My maulerfiend in combat with the pink horror finally kills it, and massacres towards his fleeing pink horror.

My turn, so its game face time. I have some decent shooty options still available. Its conceivable I can shoot down the remaining pink horror by itself with the oblit, use the skull cannon to kill a few from the half strength squad, then charge the maulerfiend in and HOPE i manage to kill enough to kill the rest with instability tests, or that he rolls a 12 for his leadership. It's a longshot but its basically all i have.

So the oblit shoots nicely, anddddd the pink horror goes to ground and passes his saves, boo. The maulerfiend now has no choice but to assault it, so i do, killing it.

GAME FIN.
End result- Out of his 10kp, i got 6. He got 8 from me. He wins.
Now that i've typed this up, i realize we actually did the score wrong for me on this. I held two bonus objectives, and had slay the warlord + linebreaker. I only gave myself 2 bonus points instead of 4, and he took i think 14 (10 for win, first blood, warlord, linebreaker and one bonus objective). ... so not that it matters now, But i cheated myself a few points.

So that's ok.


Game 2 vs. Tau! 2 Objectives primary.
dawn of war deployment, no night fight

His list - About 60 fire warriros, 2 hammerheads, 2 crisis squads w/ plasma + missle pods, 3 broadsides w/ split fire, assorted drones on the squads.


So this game does not need to be nearly as detailed. So this is a "fast recap" as it were.

I gave myself first turn, set up at the 12 inch line. Make a nice even spacing of it, one maulerfiend on each end, one spawn on each end, plaguedrones + skull cannon in the middle ect.
He deployed on his board edge as far as possible away from me.

I moved forward 12 and ran where possible. Skull cannon blew up a squad of fire warriors, but they pass leadership. Oblit tries to get first blood, fails.

His turn, he shoots everything he can at me, kills a few spawn, takes a hullpoint or two off of a maulerfiend.

I assault him the following turn. I assault him a lot more in following turns.

Game Fin.

I get 16 points, I think i got first blood, warlord, linebreaker, and 3 bonus objectives.

Game 3 vs. GK! The Relic primary.
Hammer and Anvil deployment, no night fight.

NOTE::::  This board had essentially ZERO terrain in the aspect of hammer and anvil deployment. I had to run across a blank battlefield to reach him. There was ONE tiny piece of terrain off middle, and 1  or 2 larger piece in each corner of the board. The middle was essentially empty.

His list

Coteaz
Psyker inquisitor

2x Henchmen warband, w/ 3 plasma servitors, 3 plasma acolytes, some bolter guys
2x10 Strike squad, 2 psycannon, Hammer, 2x halberd

1x10 Interceptors, 2 psycannon, Hammer, 2x halberd

1x psybolt dread
1x vindicare assassin
1x techmarine w/ upgrades + that orbital bomb array

Aegis line w/ quad gun.

My opponent had first go.

He set up at the 24 inch line with the Aegis line, then piled up guys behind it / just in front of it. Sticking Coteaz with one henchmen squad, the inquisitor with the other. He took prescience on both. All of his GK squads deploy combat squaded.

I set up just beyond 30 inches, again not interested in being volleyed for two turns.

This battle report is going to be convoluted as I have no idea what formations his squads were in. They all looked the same to me and were intermingled, so I relied on him to tell me who was in what group, and was almost immediately forgotten.

Turn 1

He moves all of his GK guys forward. Fires the quad gun at a maulerfiend immobilizing it. Uses the vindcare to fire at the skull cannon, which passes its cover save. Plasma cannons do some small damage to spawn.

I run forward at him,  maximum speed! Running where possible. The skull cannon kills a bunch of guys from one servitor squad. One of his strike squads is sticking way to far out so I manage to successfully assault it with  the juggy lord and some nurgle spawn, wiping it naturally. Oblit wifs, as is his job. A maulerfiend tries to make into a purgation squad, ( i forgot the damn flamers are S6, not S5), and ends up almost dying to the overwatch, and not making it into the combat to boot. (It gets a wound back though from IT will not die).

Turn 2

He moves his strike squads, purgation and interceptors even closer to my spawn / drones. This round of shooting for him is devastatingly good. I lose 5 spawn, 3 blight drones, and the juggy lord. He declines to assault me except a 5 man squad into a 4 man spawn squad. (with two models with two wounds on it). The two spawn with wounds die, but the rest hold their own and kill a few marines back.

My turn. Mace lord w/ his two remaining spawn move into the middle of a large cluster of GK strike guys, and assault a 5 man squad. Careful positioning ensures a ton of GK guys from outside this squad are within 3 inches of the biker base. Nurgle herald + drones move to assault another 5 man squad not within range of the blow up bases. Maulerfiend sets up to charge a 5 man strike squad cluster.

All the charges are successful, and as devastating as his shooting was, my charges are. Lots of marines die. Nurgle lord + nurgle herald (and associated squads) stay locked in combat at the end with a single poor marine with a psycannon. Woo, won't be shot in the face the following turn.

Oh and the dragon comes on, and kills the entire purgation squad. Cultists come on and grab backfield bonus objectives. One squad runs towards the center relic.

Turn 3

His servitor squads blast at.. something.. I don't think they did much of anything really. The psybolt dread fires at the skull cannon and fails. However! Two psycannons and the vindicare assassin manage to blow up my dragon.. Fail =(. I clear all my combats this turn

My turn, I set up for the next round of assaults. Maulerfiend hits another strike squad cluster, spawn hit the same cluster (to absorb the overwatch, which as it turns out was def needed). Nurgle lord sets up to assault henchmen squad w/ psyker inquisitor. Nurgle herald sets up to assault coteaz's squad.
Charges are succesful and devastating. All of the henchmen guys die, leaving only the hq's. Coteaz squad runs (and can't be swept because of slow and purposeful), and nurgle lord is locked in with the techmarine (the inquisitor died). The maulerfiend kills its squad and then moves to sit behind a ruin on his sit for cover.

Oh and naturally i keep moving my troop squad towards the relic.

Turn 4

So at this point, he has a strike squad with a single psycannon guy, a 5 man strike squad with 2 halbers, psycannon and hammer, a vindicare assassin, coteaz and a henchman (who rally), and the psybolt dread. He moves his surving troops towards the relic and sprays shots at the maulerfiend, who doesn't care, like a boss. Psybolt dread also shoots ineffectually at it. Vindicare wiffs at the skull cannon again.

My turn 4, Maulerfiend kills the psybolt dread, Nurgle lord kills the techmarine and single psycannon guy. Cultists with autoguns kill the single psycannon bro. Nurgle herald charge and kill coteaz squad and massacre towards the 5 man squad.

Turn 5

All that's left is a 5 man strike squad and vindicare. They shoot, nothing happens, Then they get assaulted and die.
Also i picked up the relic, and moved necessary models to get all bonus objectives.


Had to start summarizing there at the end.. this is a lot to type out! Wish i had remembered to take pics.

Anyways
Game Fin

18/18 points for me.


So, at this point I was pretty sure I'd get second place. I knew what the score was for the two guys at the top table, one of them is likely to lose bad, and that'd put me ahead.  Worst case was third, which still isn't bad.

HOWEVER!

The relic being the kind of mission that it is, as it turns out, neither person won on the top table. Which put me into first.

WOO!

kinda silly, but I guess that's how it goes.