Warpstorm 2 - Part 2

Game 4
Dawn of War / Capture & Control
vs Orks (Warboss & Nob squad in Trukk, Big Mek and 11-man Boyz Squad in Trukk, 12-man Boyz Squad in Trukk, 20-man Boys Squad, 5-man Burna Boyz Squad, 5-man Loota Squad, 11-man Gretchin Squad, 3-man Bike Squad, 2x Deff Dreads, 2x Killa Kanz, Looted Wagon w. Boom Gun)

This was an all important bottom table clash. I've already received a wooden spoon in my short tournament "career" so I was keen to ensure it wasn't 2 out of 3 tournys ending that way!

My opponent had a large amount or really fantastically painted orks. Beautifully understated in dull rusty colours but some fantastic blending and drybrushing really gave it the wow factor!

The game went pretty much by the book with me pouring firepower into his transports and him trying to get his hammer units onto my objective. In the end I was able to fend off his Nob and bike squads and finish the game in control of my objective.

Over on the other side of the table my Furioso had landed next to a couple of big squads of boys. I thought I was about to unleash the pain against a target Blood Tallons were surely made for ... Sadly this was not to be as in two round of combat I managed to kill a paltry 4 boyz before the power claws took their toll. This left the
job of clearing the objective to my Land Raider and the lads inside. Their carge was suitably devistating taking out a unit of 20 boys in 1 round of combat and retreating back into the Land Raider to contest the other objective.

RESULT: WIN 1-0

Game 5
Dawn of War / Seize Ground
vs Imperial Guard (Command Squad (Chimera), 3x Veteran Squads (Chimeras), 2x Penal Legion Squads, 2x Vendettas, 2x Leman Russ Demolishers, 2x Sentinels, Manticore)

I made a number of mistakes in this game, firstly I was forced to split my forces to thinly thanks to my own objective placement tactic ... Don't ask! Secondly there were only ways past the big bit of terrain on this piece of table, all of which he had covered with something nasty, and I still becided to thin out my force and attack through two out of the three routes. Perhaps this doesn't sound like a big mistake but he, very cleverly bloked the path for my Land Raider unit with a Chimera allowing him to focus on the less heavily armoured prong of my attack. Despite this I did manage to get my Land Raider through, eventually and the group ended up contesting 2 of the three objectives in that ares.

However this tactic left the remainder of my force seriously unsupported and they were whittled down over a couple of turns before being quite easily overrun by the outflanking Penal Legion Squads and Vendettas. If it had gone another turn I may have been able to pull off a draw thanks to my Land Raider unit being in position to do some serious damage to some exposed guard units but it ended and that was that.

RESULT: LOSS 2-0

Game 6
Pitched Battle/ Annihilation
vs Eldar (Eldrad, Farseer, 6 Striking Scorpions, 5 Fire Dragons, 2x 6-man Dire Avenger Squads (Wave Serpents), 3x Vipers, 3x Guardian Jet Bikes & Warlock w. Destructor), Falcon, Fire Prism)

Last game of the tournament and probably the best. There was a lot of cagey sniping and manouvering in the centre of the table. Thanks to both my Razorbacks again getting immobilised in the only lane out from behind the two large pieces of impassable terrain, my Land Raider was cut off from the bulk of the fighting again! I had to wait until the Razorbacks got wrecked before it could roll over them and back into the action. However, my two Dreadnoughts tore up the right flank. My blood talons finally proved their worth managing to take out Eldrad and a unit of Guardian Jet Bikers before going to on finish of a group of Fire Dragons. The Rifleman was it's usual efficient self taking out transports and backing up the Furioso with some fire support.

The game was close right the way through until the last turn when I got a 2 KP lead and he really had nothing left which could make an impact. However I had two units out in the open which he could tank shock for an attempt at the tie. He managed to break one of them counting as destroyed as they were falling back at the end of the game. Fortunately the other squad passed their morale checks and I eeked out a win!

RESULT - WIN 6-5

Overall I finished 15th out of 22 and tied for first place in sportsmanship which after Day 1's showing I was more than happy with.

Conclusion

A couple of things I took from this tournamnet, first of all play your list before the tournament. Pretty obvious really but I didn't and I definitely missed out, I forgot to roll for the Red Thirst at the start of all but one game. I also really didn't get the best out of my units, I forgot to use the Extra Armour on my Land Raider, I definitely did not get the best out of the unit in the Land Raider who really packed a punch when I did manage to get them into the fight. The Furioso with the Blood Talons was massively under-whelming, after 6 games he killed about 14 models, nowhere near his point cost. In most games he got quickly immobilised or just taken out of the game in some other way. It's possible that I just need more practice with this unit but I think I would have dropped it after a few practice games if I'd played them before-hand.

The Baal Pred was OK but again I need more practice with it to get the best out of it. I was using it as a bit of a suicide unit helping with taking out armoured targets, it's definitely capable of much more. Also I felt that the 5 man units were not strong enough, the Razorback added some fire power to the list but the 5 man units were easily over-run when out of their vehicles and, let's face, it AV11 is not that hard to pop for any army. Basically I wasn't happy with much at all in the list but I don't blame it on the list, I think it's viable I just need more experience in using the components. The notable exception being the Furioso with Blood Talons, I will not be taking this unit again ... ever!

On the upside the hammer unit in the Land Raider was awsome (when it got out!) and the Rifleman Dreadnought was a consistently good performer in all the games. I'm going back to a vanilla marine list for the tournament at the end of May but after that I'm committing to the Blood Angels 'dex as there's a lot of great stuff in there and a huge amount of flexibility in the lists you can build. I'm leaning to a more jump unit centric build though raher than this mech biased one, and I've just got to include a Storm Raven :)

Watch this space for news from Open War 13 at the end of the month.