Open War 13 - Game 3

After a draw and a minor loss I was safe in the knowledge I could no longer duplicate the result of the last Open War and finish dead last! I also figured I was probably in a good position to get a win out of this game as the field should have shaken itself out and I would hopefully be against at least a comparable list/player.

The mission for the last game was one created by the Open War team called Dawn Raid, details as follows:

Deployment: Pitched Battle
4 Objectives, Night Fight rules apply in turn 1
Each player deploys an objective on the edge of their deployment zone and another not in either deployment zone and no closer than 12" to another marker
You get one point for each kill point and 2 points for each objective you control at the end of the game. You also score 1 point for any objectives you contest with a troop choice.

My opponent was a fellow Space Marine player and his list was:

HQ
Captain
2x Lightning Claws

Elites
Sternguard
(6) 4x Combi-Meltas, 2x Meltaguns; Drop Pod

Troops
Tactical Squad
(10) Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Plasma Pistol, Power Fist; Drop Pod
Tactical Squad
(10) Plasmagun, Lascannon, Power Fist; Rhino w. Extra Armour
Tactical Squad
(10) Plasmagun, Lascannon, Power Fist; Rhino w. Extra Armour

Fast Attack
Assault Squad
(9) Power Weapon; Rhino w. Extra Armour

Heavy Support
Vindicator
Siege Shield, Extra Armour
Vindicator
Siege Shield, Extra Armour
Vindicator
Siege Shield, Extra Armour

Three Vindicators was going to be interesting, that's a lot of firepower! Also the mission was new to me, I hadn't had time to play-test it and to e honest I really hadn't thought about a strategy. All in all, apart from the Vindis I wasn't too worried about the list, only a small Sternguard Squad, Assault Marines and 3 Tactical Squads, nothing too killy as long as I can neutralise the Vindis!

Objectives were placed first and I placed both of mine fairly centrally on the table, he placed one on the edge of his deployment zone on my left flank and his other fairly centrally.

I got the first turn again and deployed in the bulk of my army fairly tightly in the centre of my deployment zone to enable me to be able to get to three objectives relatively easily. Terrain protected my flanks and I has a couple of good firing lanes for my heavy weapon units. I deployed the speeders on my extreme right flank hoping I would be able to maneuver them to get side armour on at least one of the Vindicators as early as possible.

He deployed very tightly castled on my extreme left flank with his three Vindicators on the left board edge. The majority of his army was in good cover behind a ruin but his Vindicators would not be in range to fire on any of my army for at least 2 turns which made me a happy bunny :)

On the first turn my speeders turbo-boosted along the back of his lines to get back into the fight, I also dropped the empty pod in cover on the far right of the board to keep it from becoming an easy kill point. In the shooting phase I was able to light up two of his Rhinos with spotlight hits from the Razorback and Rifleman Dreadnought and that was the end of them.

He started off by advancing his Vindicators down the left flank and popping smoke. The Sternguard unit dropped into my back lines and popped Pedro's Rhino. So far so good, minimal impact from one of his more killy units and they were going to be ripe for the picking next turn.



Turn two started well with my reserve rolls bringing Lysander and his Sternies to the party, I dropped him in behind the Vindicators and next to the Assault Squad's Rhino. The speeders moved into range of the Assault Sqaud Rhino and the Tac Squads in his back lines. In the shooting phase Pedro's unit finished off the Sternies in my back-lines. The Dread and TFC tried to whittle down his tac squads in cover but he made a lot of saving throws so I didn't get a lot of joy there. However the combined result of my Landspeeders and the combat Squaded Sternguard resulted in 1 wrecked and 1 destroyed Vindicator and a destroyed Rhino ... nice!

My opponent got his Tac Squad in their drop pod and they came in next to my speeders, not a comfortable position for my skimmers. His remaining Vindicator rounded the corner and drew a bead on on my Tactical Squad in the Rhino holding my home objective. Kaboom! The Rhino went up in a cloud of smoke leaving my Tac Squad in a smoking crater - this lead to the first rules check of any tournament I have ever played as he wasn't aware that I could claim cover from an exploded vehicle. When staring down the barrel of a Vindicator I am going to do everything possible to get myself a save of some kind! His Tac Squad combat squadded out of their drop pod and took some shots at my speeders, probably doing some damage but not destroying them, I would have remembered that! Finally his Assaut Squad and the captain multi assaulted my sternies and Lysander resulting in a tied combat. The Captain directed his attacks at Lysander who was too busy pulverising the assault squad to notice the Lightning Claws trying to get his attention and took a wound! How rude.



This is where the game starts to get a bit messy in my memory, there are a couple of key areas where the game is won, the first being the battle between Lysander, the Sternguard and the Captain and the Assault Squad. This combat eventually whittled down to Lysander vs the Captain and the Sergeant of the Assault Squad. I declared that I was going to split my attacks, 1 on the Sgt and 2 on the Captain, and my opponent challenged this saying I couldn't split my attacks like that. As this would be a somewhat crucial combat I suggested getting a ruling from the judges. The result was that we decided to roll for it and it came out that I was allowed split my attacks. I'm pretty sure this is absolutely fine but I was surprised that the judges would not rule one way or another on it, please post comments below. Anyway, surprise surprise Lysander marmalised them both and consolidated within easy reach of the two remaining members of a tactical squad that had been subjected to 3 turns of very accurate Thunderfire Cannon abuse. Needless to say that Lysander ended up single handedly shooing away any scoring troops from my opponent's home objective.

Key area number two was my tactical squad in the crater vs. the last Vindicator. The Vindicator managed to get 3 turns of shooting off against my Tactical squad once it had been removed from its transport and my genius play of claiming cover from the Rhino's wreckage would prove pretty unnecessary. The first round o shooting was devastating with me failing all my cover saves reducing the squad to three men ad to their credit they did not run. In the remaining two turns of shooting however, my opponent repaid my appalling cover save dice by rolling 1s to wound every single time. It was freaky! So the remnants of my Tac Squad doggedly held the objective to the end.

Finally the drop podded Tactical Squad, despite a torrent of bolter fire they took two turns to destroy my speeders but in the three turns that they were exposed to the combined fire of my TFC, Rifleman Dread and Sternguard Lascannon Squad I managed to completely wipe them out.

The result of all this was that I held two objectives at the end of the game to his zero, I also was well ahead on kill points and I won by a sufficient margin to score a massacre and bump myself up to 19th overall which I was very pleased about indeed. I think my opponent made some pretty big mistakes and I was happy that I managed to capitalise on them for a change. Despite the rules queries the game was played in a good spirit and my opponent managed to keep a positive attitude even though he was also royally screwed by his dice as well.

Open War 13 - Game 2

When I go to a Tournament I'm not there to try and win, I'm going to have a good time and play some fun games and for me that's all about both sides being able to say they really enjoyed the game. For me game 2 was that game in this tournament. Looking at the models on his tray I got a real sinking feeling as it looked a lot like an IG Leaf-Blower variation and I thought "bugger it this is going to go south pretty fast". Anyway, I put on a brave face and got him to talk me through his list, I'm afraid I can't remember the specifics but here's the gist of it:

Command Squad
Plasma Guns, Lascannon Team, Chimera

Veteran Squad (x2)
Meltaguns, Lascannon Team; Chimera
Veteran Squad (x3)
Meltaguns

Vendetta (3)
3x TL Lascanon

Hydra Flak Cannon (2)
Manticore (2)
Medusa

One thing I failed to notice and would have given me some comfort was the fact that there were no Leman Russes, the lack of AV14 would seem to make this list a lot less threatening, still, quite a lot of firepower to cope with!

The mission was Annihilation with Dawn of War deployment. I decided I'd need to make the most of the cover of night in the first turn so on winning the roll off I elected to go first. Taking a leaf out of Gav's book I deployed my two Rhinos 7" onto the table so that on turn 1 I could get my Tac Squad and Lascannon Sternguard squad into good positions. He deployed his command squad in good cover diagonally opposite to my Rhinos, maximising the range between us.

OnTurn 1 I dropped the empty drop pod behind the ruins in the middle of the table, rolled my units on to the left side of the board, moving the Tac squad Rhino into the centre nd popping smole to give cover to the rest of my units. I turbo-boosted my Land Speeders down the extreme left flank and brought my Thunderfire Cannon up the middle towards some ruins I had bolstered. Thanks to night-fighting his Chimera was not in range so that was that for my turn 1.

My opponent rolled his mass of armour onto the table, the Hydras and Manticores moved on to the centre of the table and his Medusa came on on the right flank behind his three Chimeras. The Vendettas spread across the front of his lines. Thanks to some poor night fight rolls and my smoke cover save I got away from his turn of shooting completely unscathed.

At the start of Turn 2 I got Lysander and his Sternguard units and the gloves were off, the Thunderfire Cannon rolled into the ruins. I unloaded everything into his front lines resulting in 1 destroyed and one stunned Vendetta, 1 deastroyed and one stunned Hydra, 2 destroyed Manticores. Not too shabby! In reply A unit of Veterans exited the stunned Vendetta and another came to support them from one of the Chimeras to take down Lysander and his Sternies. In a starteling reversal of form Lysander and the unit withered the storm and held their ground despite heavy losses. Other than that all he managed to do wa to stun a Land Speeder, this was a suspiciously good start for me.



Turn 3 was a little less awsome, My long range shooting was less impresive this turn only managing to stun the nearest Vendetta again and the Thunderfire Cannon only had limited success against the Veteran squads in the centre of the table.. Assault was slightly better, each of the remaining Sternguard combat squads attacked their respective Veteran Squad assailants and Lysander peeled off and took out the remaining Hydra. The result of the Sternguard assaults was one all with the squad on the left running down their Veteran Squad and the squad on the right falling under the weight of attacks against them. Fortunately the IG suffered from abysmal dice again and I got away from his turn relatively unscathed, though I did lose Lysander and the remaining Sternguard to massed lasgun fire bit of a bummer but I was expecting it, they had done their jobs.



On turn 4 the game started to slip away from me, I managed to take out the second Vendetta and the rest of the guard squad on the ground in the centre table but his shooting was more meaningful. My Rhino in the centre of the table was wrecked and he took out one of the Drop Pods for another kill point. More importantly, however he managed to take out one of my Land Speeders and knock the Launchers off the other one. This basically killed the long range anti-tank shooting I would be able to bring to bear in the next turn and as all he had left on the board was AV12 I would not be able to get any more kill points in turn 5. Bummer!



In turn 5 I maneuvered as best I could to deny him the opportunity to get any other kill points, but His remaining Vendetta was able to get a line on the remaining Land Speeder which was easily dispatched, followed quickly by the remaining Drop Pod which withered quickly under all of his remaining anti-tank fire.



It was a good game and one I had a really good chance in at pretty much every turn right up until the last one. My opponent recovered really well from what must have been a pretty demoralising top of turn two when my shooting really cut a swathe through his lines and he was able to weather the storm and pick off kill points consistently in every turn. Perhaps I would have done better if I had dropped Lysander into his troop transports as there were more kill points available there but I thought his artillery was of more danger to my own lines and I think it's pretty much a coin flip decision really.

Result - Minor Loss (7-9)
MVP - No stand-out in this game all the anti-tank weaponry really pulled it's weight.

The Emperor's "Tactical Retreat"

Andy and I had a go at the new Fantasy Flight board game Horus Heresy last night and I have to say it was brilliant. It took us about 4 hours to play but that was mainly because we were looking something up in the rule book every five minutes. The Activation Markers (which stop you just using the same units over and over again) and the Iteration Track (which changes the 40K dynamic of your turn, my turn) makes for a really tactical game.

Nearing the Spaceport Victory part of the game Andy had control of all four of the Spaceports:


Only a daring attack by the Blood Angels managed to capture the Lion's Gate Spaceport and kept the game going.

Eventually, with the Imperial's reserves arriving soon from the warp, Horus managed to trap The Emperor in the Factorum in the south. However, using some Secret Tunnels, he made good his escape and so the Space Wolves and Dark Angels arrived signalling an Imperial victory.

In all I managed to kill 3 of the Traitor's Primarchs for the loss of just the Khan so it was as much a moral victory as it was a hold out. It was quite a tight game all the way through and I'm looking forward to playing as the bad guys next time. I'm not sure how that will go as I'll probably be too aggressive with them but maybe that's what's needed as you can't hang around once the clock is ticking.

Waaaagggghhhhh!

I've been working on an Ork list for a little while now and I think I've come up with a list I'm happy with. After pretty much constantly saying how much I'm against Nob Bikers ... this list includes a big fat Nob Biker squad (I feel deep shame) but I'm thinking about taking this list to tournaments in the latter half of the year and I want it to be fairly competitive and frankly I can't be bothered to paint up 30ish Stormboyz instead:

HQ
Big Meks with Kustom Force Fields (2)

These guys are surely a must-have in almost all Ork army builds, that cover save is going to mean that a good portion of your force is going to make it to where it wants to go to ... in your face! They's be riding in the two Battle Wagons making them almost as much of a threat as the Nob Bikers ...

Elites
Nob Bikers (6 + a Painboy: Waaagh Banner, 2 Power Claws and other bits )

OK, I'm feeling a bit bad about this but they're going to be zooming in on their own ahead of the rest of the army and they need to hold their own without support. I was going to use a regular squad of Bikers but frankly they die too easy, break and run off the board (in my limited experience at least). With any luck these guys will get straight in and tie up a unit or two that would give the rest of the army behind trouble getting to their targets

Troops
Many Boyz (2 Squads of 30 Shoota Boys each with a PK Nob and 2 Squads of 19 SluggacBoys each with a PK Nob)

Pretty basic here, the 30 man Shoota Squads are foot slogging across the board and the 19 man Sluggas are in the Battle Wagons with the Big Meks. These lads are going straight up the middle, the Shootas will be flanked by the Sluggas with the Meks in the Wagons giving everything a cover save. The Shootas will also be screened by 3 Killa Kans who should be in range of the KFF too.

Heavy Support
Killa Kans (3 with Grotzookas)

This is probably the one squad I'm a little dubious about but I love the models so they're staying in the list no matter what!

Battle Wagons (2 with Deff Rollas)
Transport for my two Slugga Boys Squads and he Big Meks. They roll up on the flanks of the big block of Boyz in the centre providing cover and, frankly a big fat threat with their Deff Rollas and the 19 Slugga Boyz in each one.

Well, that's the list, It's mostly built, I just need a couple of Battle Wagons to finish it off and about a ton of green paint

Sadly there is no place for my Warboss despite the rather fab paint job, if I do say so myself!

Open War 13 - Game 1

Well I figured that after my showing at the last Open War tournament (where I placed last in the 40k event) i could only do better this time. However I'd not had a lot of time to prepare, my list was largely theoretical and it had been soundly beaten the previous Thursday. At least I had taken away some good adjustments from Thursday's game so I rocked up to Warhammer World on a wet Saturday morning feeling positive about the day ahead.

My first game was Spearhead deployment, Seize Ground (5 objectives) against a Daemon list which my opponent referred to as a bit 'beardy'. I'd never played against Daemons before so this comment did not boost my confidence. I have, however, recently started listening to the 11th Company podcast and one of the hosts plays Daemons and regularly gives good insight into the lists he plays, so at least I wasn't going in completely blind!

I won the roll and elected to go first the plan was to spread out as much as possible to deny the Daemons the option to easily deploy in open ground. At the same time I was concious of setting up firing lanes and keeping them clear, I would probably only get one turn of clear shooting and I would need to make it count. As it turned out he immobilised his Soulgrinder in difficult terrain and lost a couple of bloodletters in the same vein. Later on the tactic would reap bigger rewards thanks to his Lord of Change misshapping itself to death! Good times.

Frankly I was a bit lucky in this game, the Lord of Change would have been a potential game-winner for him, if it had survived. He got no additional reserves in turn 2 and only half on turn 3 so I had plenty of chances to whittle him down in bite-size chunks. However my
shooting was pretty poor initially and his Bloodthirster managed to take out Pedro and his Sternies before I could take it down.

Lysander finally played a key part in a game for me by first lending his Bolter Drill to the Sternguard who managed to take out the remaining 14 Bloodletters in one round of shooting! He also managed to single-handedly tar-pit a large unit of Dameonettes (my opponent's last remaining troop unit at the time) stopping them from holding an objective thus guaranteeing that I could not loose.

Sadly his Daemon Prince was able to eat through the units on my 'home' objectives and contest the only objective I held out-right on the last turn of the game. It was a good, closely fought game, a perfect start to a tournament and a good intro to Daemons.

Daemon List
Lord of Change
Master of Sorcery, Breath of Chaos
Bloodthirster
Unholy Might

Bloodletters
(16) Icon of Chaos, Instrument of Chaos
Daemonettes
(12) Icon of Chaos, Instrument of Chaos
Pink Horrors
(9) Changeling, Bolt of Tzeentch

Fiends of Slaanesh
(6) Unholy Might

Soul Grinder
Phlegm
Daemon Prince
Mark of Tzeentch, Wings Daemonic Gaze

Result - Draw (0-0)
MVP - Lysander

All in the Mind

I've been talking with Andy about his experiences at Open War on Saturday and he said that 6 Daemon players finished in the top 15. Along with the large number of Blood Angel players at Warp Storm and Kirby's excellent write up, I've been thinking about changing the psychic powers on my Rune Priests. Specifically, I'm thinking about bringing in Tempest's Wrath.

At the minute I take two Rune Priests both in Rhinos, both with Living Lightning. I can move my pillboxes 6" to ensure I have good shots and then I get two lots of D6 shots of infinite range S7 goodness. This fits in really well with the rest of the long range shooting in my army and gives me some good chances to take out Rhinos and Land Speeders and stun Chimeras and Vendettas. I also take Murderous Hurricane on one of the Priests. 3D6 S3 hits won't do a huge amount of damage by itself but putting the unit that you cast this upon into Difficult and Dangerous Terrain for a turn is golden. So, a unit that wants to assualt you has to take two tests which will hopefully both leave them short of assault and kill another couple of models. Plus if they don't have Assault Grenades, they're hitting last.

Anyway, that's three out of my four powers selected and they're the ones that I'm happy with. I've been taking Jaws of the World Wolf as my other power and it's been a bit hit and miss. In one game against Tyranids it took out a Hive Tyrant, 2 Tyrant Guard and a Zoanthrope in one turn but that was sheer bad luck from the other player. Against Andy's Orks it has proven useful to snipe at Nobs with Power Claws but against his Space Marines it's never done that much damage. Part of the issue there is that it's very much the 2nd power so I spend most of the game using Living Lightning. Is it worth keeping for that 1 in 6 chance (assuming you pass your physchic test) to kill a Broodlord, Lysander, Calgar or any of those other high priced characters? At the moment I'm leaning towards keeping it in my list for regular games but I think I'd probably replace it with Tempest's Wrath for a tournament.

As a brief footnote, I'd like to talk about the other two powers and why I personally don't take them. I tried Fury of the Wolf Spirits once but found it too short ranged, not quite deadly enough and the bonus of Pinning is only useful against certain armies. As for Stormcaller, again I've tried it a couple of times but since I run a mech list I can get a 4+ save by popping smoke rather than a 5+ save by using this.

Tabled!

On a sunny Monday afternoon and with the help of my brother Jonathan I got the gaming table built! It's built in two 4x4 sections for easier storage and it really wasn't all that tricky to put together. I've got a tester pot of textured paint to try and give it a rough surface without having to flock it ... watch this space.


-- Andy, posting on the go.

Location:Queens Dr,Nottingham,United Kingdom