Beam me up Scotty

Well it's been a while since the Caledonian Open and I've finally gotten around to writing up my battle reports, I apologise for the brevity of the Daemons reports but the lists and results were so similar that the two games blur into one in my memory.

Anyway, enough of that, on with the action:


My List
Librarian
Fear of the Darkness, The Sanguine Sword
Terminator Assault Squad
(5) 2x Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, 3x Lightning Claws; Land Raider Redeemer w. Extra Armour & Multi Melta
Sanguinary Priests
(2)
Sternguard
(5) Combi-Meltagun x4; Drop Pod
Assault Squad
(5) Meltagun, Sergeant w. Power Weapon; Razorback w. Dozer Blade & Lascannon and TL Plasmagun
Assault Squad
(5) Meltagun, Sergeant w. Power Weapon; Razorback w. Dozer Blade & Lascannon and TL Plasmagun
Assault Squad
(5) Razorback w. Twin Linked Lascannon
Dreadnought
Twin Linked Autocannon x2
Dreadnought
Twin Linked Autocannon x2
Devastator Squad
(5) Missile Launcher x4

Game 1
vs Necrons

Necron Lord
Veil of Darkness, Disruption Field
(10x Warriors) x2
(5x Destroyers) x2
4x Destroyers
(3x Heavy Destroyers) x2
2x Heavy Destroyers

Mission: Dawn of War, Seize Ground

1st game of the day and I drew the only Necron player in the field. Before I had managed to get too excited I noticed that they were being played by a pretty well know tournament player, certainly I'd seen him in the top-10 of many of the tournies I've previously attended. It's also a list I'm not familiar with and the “spammy” nature of it gave me a little cause for concern.

I rushed as much as I could across the table as quickly as possible while trying to get cover for my vehicles for as long as possible. Fortunately my opponent's dice were truly horrible culminating in turn 2 with him failing a leadership test for Fear of the Darkness which caused a unit of Destroyers to run off the table. His luck changed at the bottom of the 2nd though when he immobilised my Land Raider, effectively neutralising my Terminators until the top of Turn 5 when they finally managed to get into combat.

The Warriors and the Lord had been kept in reserve but they also arrived at the bottom of turn 2 so, with his Destroyer units a shadow of their former selves, at the top of turn 3 I turned my attentions to the scoring units. The Warriors were set up so that one unit screened the other with the Lord, no matter, I thought, We'll just take them one at a time. Sure enough, one round of combat later and the screening unit had been run down, shooting in the previous phase had done a number on the Lord's squad seriously reducing it's shooting effectiveness next turn.

As it turned out shooting was not the plan and at the bottom of Turn 4, with a wave of his hand, the Lord and the remnants of his squad zoomed across the table to an objective in cover not far from my Devastators. Bum, this put me in a position from which I may not be able to pull out anything better than a draw.

However, the saving grace of all who play against Necrons, Phase-Out, was only 3 models away. I only had one turn to achieve this and nothing was in assault range so I unloaded everything I had into the Lord's unit in the hope that three of his squad would vapourise. When the smoke cleared the mangled carcasses of only two Necrons were apparent and at the bottom of turn 5 the remaining Destroyers turbo-boosted to contest the other objectives I held and wouldn't you know it, that's where the game ended.

Turn 6 would have guaranteed a Phase Out but that's the way things go sometimes and to be honest he'd played too well to lose that way. The final score was 11-9 to me but technically a Draw which I think was the right result.

Result: Draw

Games 2 & 3

vs Daemons

List 1
2x Great Unclean One
(8x Blood Crushers) x2
6x Fiends
(5x Plague Bearers) x3
6x Plague Bearers
1x Soul Grinder

Mission: Pitched Battle, Capture and Control
Result: Loss

List 2
Great Unclean One
Lord of Change
7x Bloodcrushers
(6x Fiends) x2
(5x Plague Bearers) x2
8x Bloodletters
(3x Screamers) x2
2x Daemons Prince
MoT, Bolt of Change

Spearhead, Annihilation
Result: Loss

Both of these games were very similar and what they boiled down to was the fact that I panicked and didn't play my list to properly counter his key units. I find it very hard to know how to cope with the destructive power of those Elite units. In the first game my opponent got everything on tun 2 and I was overwhelmed. I couldn't reposition my units quickly enough to counter him and his charge on turn 3 left me crippled. I managed to hold out until the end of the game and salvage a 4 - 16 loss out of what could have been a tabling.

In the second game I fared slightly better but I spent too much time and firepower taking out this Daemon Princes and HQ units (the damn Lord of Change just would not die!). So his Crushers and Fiends were able to take out my heavy units and move onto the softer units relatively uncontested. Again, I hung in there but could only manage a 5 – 15 loss

Game 4
vs Imperial Guard

Command Squad
3x Plasma Guns, Regimental Standard; Chimera
(10x Veterans, 3x Meltaguns) x3
Infantry Platoon
Command Squad w. 4x Flamers; Chimera
3x Infantry Squad w. Autocannon & Sniper Rifle
1x Infantry Squad w. Autocannon, Sniper Rifle & Commissar w. Meltabombs
3x Vendetta
3x Manticore

Mission: Dawn of War, Capture and Control

Start of Day 2 and I'm up against a rather unpleasant looking IG list, given my results on the previous day I have to say I was surprised to see this list across the table but you gotta play what's in front of you :)

Clearly I had not slept well the night before as I won the roll-off and elected to go second! I had forgotten about night fighting in my excitement over winning the roll and this cost me pretty badly. By turn 3 he had taken out all of my transports and I decided to play for the draw as I could not advance on foot in the face of all of his firepower.

As it happened I did managed to get the draw on mission but his artillery and Vendettas had exacted a heavy toll on my forces, In fact I only had 4 scoring models left to protect my objective and keep him from being able to get his Vendettas close enough to contest. So although the mission was a draw the final score was a 7-13 loss.

Result: Draw

Game 5
vs Imperial Guard

Commissar Lord
Psyker Battle Squad
Chimera
4x Ratlings
Infantry Platoon
Command Squad w. 2x Plasma Gun, 1x Bolter; Chimera
2x Infantry Squad w. Lascannon; Chimera
Infantry Platoon
Command Squad w. Flamer, Bolt Pistol & Power Weapon; Chimera
1x Infantry Squad w. Lascannon; Chimera
1x Infantry Squad w. Missile Launcher; Chimera
Hellhound
Banewolf
2x Leman Russ Demolisher
Manticore

Mission: Spearhead, Seize Ground

OMG, you should have seen the number of Chimeras I was lined up against here, factoring in his fast and heavy choices, this was the very definition of “Mech-Guard”. However, he made what I would consider to be a serious tactical error in reserving everything! After the game my opponent said it was because in a spearhead deployment with the terrain as it was he could not deploy all of his vehicles without seriously hampering his ability to move.

As it turned out though I was able to get across to his side of the board and pick off his units piecemeal. His reserve rolls were very unlucky which meant I only had to deal with a few units at a time so really, I got lucky here and was afforded an easy victory thanks to what probably seemed like a sensible idea given the circumstances of the game. What also padded the result in my favour was the fact that we went 7 turns which really boosted the VP tally I was able to amass. The reselt was a decisive 17-3 victory.

Result: Win

Game 6
vs Tyranids

Tervigon
Catalyst, Toxin Sacs
(3x Hive Guard) x2
3x Zoanthropes
(10 Termagants) x2
Tervigon
Onslaught, Toxin Sacs
Tervigon
Onslaught, Toxin Sacs
3x Trygon

Mission: Pitched Battle, Annihilation

Ah 'nids, probably my favourite army to play against but with 12 T6 models including 6 monstrous creatures I certainly wasn't expecting it to be a walk in the park. His deployment did give me a distinct advantage as he placed all of his models in one corner of his deployment zone. As I didn't want to engage him in close combat at all, let alone at full strength I deployed in the opposite corner and let him come to me.

Thanks to my fas vehicles I could move into shooting range and then keep backing up to stay out of charge range but within shooting range. Three turns of this, and some extraordinarily close calls on the charge range measurements, and he had lost all three Trygons and two Tervigons were seriously wounded. At this point his Hive Guard were within range but fortunately he tried to go after my Land Raider which was a long-shot at best and didn't pay off.

When I'd fallen back back as far as I could go I was able to initiate the charge and engage on my terms which allowed me to make the most of the first round of combat and place my Terminators to screen the weaker units. My Land Raider even got to fire off it's Redeemer Cannons to great effect.

All in all whether by luck or judgement, I played it just right and there wasn't a lot my opponent could have done about it. He did get a chance to take out the Land Raider with the Zoans in turn two but his dice deserted him. If he'd taken it out it could have been a very different result but it ended in a 17-3 win for me.

Result: Win

To sum up I really enjoyed the Tournament, it was very well run, all of my opponents were great fun and I can't wait to do it again next year. As always I made a few tactical errors which cost me games and I don't think my list was particularly well balanced as was shown by my encounters with the Daemon players. I'll continue to work on my list and my decision making process in games and hopefully I'll continue to improve.

With Open War 15 less than a month away now I'm looking forward to the next Tournament and hopefully achieving better than a 50% win ratio. Watch this space for updates on that one in early Arpil.