Styrian Championships 40k 2011

The Styrian Championships 40k 2011 were held, well ... LONG ago, but better late then never. ;)

Having played my shooty Shade Bearers a lot lately in tournaments I discovered that bringing three times the fire power of an opponent does not matter at all if you get you face bashed in by necrons in close combat. The gentle reader might now think: "Necrons? Close combat? Surely you jest! Only scarabs are worth mentioning."

Well, tell you what: Ward's "elite shooty army"™ is not good at shooting or does always glance on 6/more hits with DS- count as elite now? Rest is overcosted and unreliable. Someone tell the guy to read his codex. The really reliable things only work in close combat. Command barge warscythe lords (always hit on 3+, pick target on a 6?), entropic strikes, mindshackle scarabs on lords, wraiths with whipcoils,...

So this time I don't shoot, I smash face. ;)

*************** 1 HQ ***************
Emperor's Champion
- Accept any Challenge, no matter the odds
- - - > 140 points

*************** 3 Elites ***************
5 Terminator Assault Squad
- 3 x lightning claw
- 2 x thunder hammer & storm shield
- Furious Charge
- - - > 215 points

5 Terminator Assault Squad
- 5 x thunder hammer & storm shield
- - - > 200 points

Dreadnought
- Venerable
- Tank Hunter
- missile launcher
- twin-linked lascanon
- extra armor
- - - > 165 points

*************** 3 Troops ***************
Crusader Squad
5 Initiates
- 1 x missile launcher
- 1 x meltagun
- 1 x bolter
+ Rhino
- - - > 150 points

Crusader Squad
5 Initiates
- 1 x missile launcher
- 1 x bolter
+ Rhino
- - - > 140 points

Crusader Squad
5 Initiates
- 1 x missile launcher
- 1 x bolter
+ Rhino
- - - > 140 points

*************** 1 Fast attack***************
Land Speeder
- multimelta
- heavy flamer
- - - > 75 points

*************** 2 Support ***************
Land Raider Crusader
- - - > 265 points

Land Raider Crusader
- - - > 265 points


Markus "Maxamato" Juran
Army: Space Marines
List: Librarian with nullzone and gate, 5 Terminators with assaultcannon, 2x Dakkadread, 3x five man tactical squad with combi-plasma in razorback with twinlinked lascannon, 2 multimelta trikes, 1 typhoon landspeeder with multimelta, 1 landspeeder with heavy flamer and multimelter, vindicator with siegeshield, 1 predator with autocannon and lascannons, 1 predator with twinlinked lascannon and heavy bolters
Mission: Table quarters
Deployment: Spearhead
First turn: him

He put up his gunline and I deployed to drive my land raiders straight at him. His meltas couldn't stop them and I literally hammer his resistance down. On round 4 he has nothing left, that could threaten me and he conceded. Or at least he would have if I didn't talk him out of it over a smoke.... So, e got to kill another terminator to bring them below half strength and I don't get full battlepoints.
Battlepoints 9:1


Jan "Cannonfodder" Peters
Army: Necrons
List: Anrakyr, Court with lord, warscythe, mindshacke scarabs, regenerationsphere, cryptek with solarpulse, 2x triarch stalker with particle shredder, 1x 10 immortals with blasters, 3x 8 warriors, 2x 8 scarabs, 1x 7 scarabs, 1x 2 spyders, monolith
Mission: 1 objective each
Deployment: Pitched battle
First turn: me

We deploy our objectives on one side exactly opposite of each other. I set up to rush at him and then pretty much did exactly that. Anrakyr let one land raider fire at the other but missed, his gauss troops are behind cover and could not target the land raiders, so the next round I charged him with terminators and the champion cut Anrakyr down. The terminators then waded through his troops and I slowly smashed every resistance. Also, scarabs are no match for crusader squads! Or is it the other way around? Still, five marines kept 9 scarab bases busy for 4 rounds before getting boltered to death. They still got pretty far to my objective, but wiping them out ended every danger of loosing my objective.
Battlepoints 8:2


Christopher "Grisi" Tafner Lucky McLucker
Army: Necrons
List: Overlord with warscythe and command barge, cryptek with solarpulse, destroyer lord with regeneration sphere 1x 5 triarch praetorians with voidblades, 2x warriors, 6 wraiths with 1x whipcoils, 4 scarab bases, 4 destroyers, 2x monolith, 1x 2 spyders with 1 fabricator claw
Mission: victorypoints
Deployment: Dawn of War
First turn: him

You might remember him from my last battle report ;)
Well, killing everything is easy enough.... not.
Terminators vs. Wraiths: Terminators were killed without killing a single wraith.
Destroyer Lord with praetorians vs. Champion and Terminators: Lord stood up five times on a 6.
Terminators vs. scarabs: Terminators got killed.
Land speeder vs. command barge: Meltafail and gets swoopattacked and wrecked by the lord who then goes on to fight it out with my dreadnought for 5 rounds without a winner.
The funny part is, I didn't get shot that much. It was mostly close combat that got me, so the thing I want to do. WTF?
Game gets down to "You hit me, but I don't care, because that's how I roll!" and my marines don't simply get up again.
Playing for killpoints instead of victorypoints didn't help me either. ;)
Battlepoints 4:6


Armin "Lediatan" Stübinger
Army: Chaos Space Marines
List: Demonprince with mark of Tzeentch and warptime, 1x 10 Chaos Space Marines, icon of chaos glory, plasmagun and lascannonand Champion with powerfist, 1x 10 Chaos Space Marines, icon of chaos glory, plasmagun and lascannon, 1x 10 Thousand Sons with bolt of Tzeentch, 1x 9 Thousand Sons with bolt of Tzeentch, 2x 3 obliterators, 1x 2 obliterator
Mission: 5 objectives
Deployment: Spearhead
First turn: Him

Yay, Chaos! And no rhinos!
I get 3 objectives and deploy them so I can capture them and still get cover for my rhinos. I deployed as forward as possible to get to him as fast as possible and he put his obliterators on the third floor of a building. His troops stay on the floor to block me from getting trough and claim his objectives. Well, 8 lascannons don't stop land raiders, although one get stunned. So I push forward, kill his demonprince with missiles and multimeltas and multicharge his first line of troops slaughtering most of them and staying in combat. We then hit us some more and I whittle him down until he has just some thousand sons and I think one obliterator left.
Battlepoints : 8:2


Heinz "McGurk" Tschig
Army: Orks List: 2x warboss with bike, powerclaw and cybork, 1x 30 ork boyz with boss, bosspole, powerclaw, 2x 9 bossbikaz with the obvious crap ;P
Mission: Get into opponents deployment zone and keep more points than him there
Deployment: Pitched battle
First turn: me

We both had fast armies, he had more resilience, I got more long range guns. So what to do?
The idea was to hit one bikermob from range, then hit it with terminators and hopefully kill enough to win with points. So, how did that go?
Naturally we both didn't deploy anything and then made way to the other table edge without getting hit by the other. More or less. I still manage to kill a few bikers and get the charge with one terminator squad in.
The warboss could not consolidate into combat, so he didn't get to fight with his whole squad. Everything was well, I just needed to kill 3 nobbikers to not draw the game. No problem with furious charge terminators with reroll on everything on 6 nobs when 3 just have one wound?
12 Attacks do 2 wounds who are then saved on fives, thunder hammers then kill two nobs and didn't kill another one in the next round. Well, draw because of  one wound.
Battlepoints : 5:5

Conclusion:
Templars still work. ;)

And didn't win the tournament because of one point. (Ok, "win". Battlepoints would have been a draw and I had much more victorypoints.)

So things to do:
- Remember to make photos. Uh...
- Let my opponents concede it the want. Ok, to be fair that conceding always brings problems because no one ever makes rules for that. But it's still the one point... ;D
- Get better dice. Done.
- DESTROY GRISI'S DICE. In progress. xD

Necrons!

Here we are getting our face beaten in by the new kid on the block. Or are we?
Well let's see:

The Necrons led by Phaeron Felix Felicis the lucky lucker (1750 points):

Destroyer lord, warscythe, weave, tachyon arrow, resurrection orb
C'tan shard, lord of fire, writhing worldscape
10 Necron warriors
10 Necron warriors
5 immortals, tesla carabine
5 immortals, tesla carabine
6 canoptek wraiths, 6 x whip coils
4 destroyers
4 canoptek scarabs
Monolith
Monolith


Vs my Shade Bearers led by librarian Metusalem the senile (also 1750 points):

Librarian, terminator armor, storm shield, nullzone, gate to infinity
5 assault terminators, 4 x thunderhammer/storm shield
Ironclad dreadnought, heavy flamer, meltagun, dreadnought close combat weapon, seismic hammer
5 sternguard veterans, 2 x combi-melter Razorback, lascannon, twin linked plasmagun
10 space marines, melter, lascannon, combi-melter
Rhino
10 space marines, melter, lascannon, combi-melter
Rhino
5 Scouts, 5 x sniperrifle
Land Speeder, 1 x heavy bolter, typhoon missile launcher
Land Speeder, 1 x heavy bolter, typhoon missile launcher
2 Trikes, 2 x multimelta
Predator, autocannon, 2 lascannons
Predator, autocannon, 2 lascannons

Let the slaughter begin!

The battlefield

Mission: One objective each.
Deployment: spearhead
First turn: him, and lost with a one, what else?


Turn 1:

Deployment

Necron deploment and objective. One monolith, an immortal squad and a warrior squad were left in reserve.

I set up my objective bunker and put some squads in the ruins. Terminators in front, charge!
A combat squad in a rhino, the trikes and the two land speeders went in reserve, the scouts outflanked.

And then it began. Or didn't because I tried to seize for laughs... and failed of course.
First turn was just moving forward for him as nothing is in range. I didn't move much, terminators ran forward, the dreadnought didn't get immobilized in terrain. (Stupid imba c'tan power btw). Then I open up with 7 lascannons, 2 autocannons, sternguard bolters,... well everything I got on the field and downed one (1!!!) destroyer... Who got up on a six. Yay.


Turn 2:

So, necrons on the move. Wraiths went for the terminators, rest of his army goes for my objective. Destroyers jump forward and shot the sternguard, doing 5 wounds. All died. Immortals shot the terminators. One wound through shooting. One dead. Dreadnought gets shaken by the monolith. Terminators get charged by the destroyer lord and the wraiths. All died, no wound done to the necrons.

On my turn I shot some manage to kill the solo destroyer lord, again with about my whole army... Who didn't get up, yay!

It's a two! Outstanding!

The trikes managed to immobilize the monolith and the dreadnought charged the destroyers. No ones on the dangerous terrain! He killed two and both get up on sixes.

Turn 3:

Wraiths jumped into the ruin and ate the combat squad. Rest of the necrons advanced further. The dreadnought killed a destroyer, who decided to take a nap. Scarabs were teleported in through the monolith and waited for next turn. My trikes got shot down to one trike. I got the rhino and the scouts from reserve and the scouts failed to enter on the right side of the board, so I put them on my objective. The rhino made haste to his objective to contest. Killed two of his wraiths in the ruin and managed to blow up the monolith and promtly my trike got cought in the explosion while the scarabs survived without a scratch.


Turn 4:

Wraiths attacked my predators and eploded one and stunned the other. The rest of his army was out of range or didn't see anything so he just marched forward again, but too slow the reach my objective with anything but the wraiths before round six. The monolith made a deepstrike mishap, but just got placed in reserve again. The scarabs charged the dreadnought and he failed to hit them but once. Hey, 3+ is hard! Gets his armor reduced to 11 and the necrons hold their ground.

I get a speeder from reserve and boost it to his objective, the rhino drives forward and the combat squad gets out. Shooting killed two wraiths and 4 warriors on his objective. Three get up on sixes. The dreadnought finally remembered how to squish WS2 bugs and killed two scarab bases, then he ran the necrons down.


Turn 5:
 Monolith came in but again mishapped, but this time it got destroyed. Wraiths charged the razorback and destroyed it. Everything else ran to my objective. I drove a rhino and a land speeder to contest on his objective and shot (three down, two got up on sixes) and assaulted the squad on it (1 down, got up on a five) but the necrons held. The second speeder came in and blew up the wraiths with the rest of my army. He rolls for turn six: 2.

Space sarines win! ... Wait,... WHAT?

Conclusion:
I have a camera now.

...

Ok, the game. Well, if the necron list had been more optimized (read: already included the expensive new stuff) I would have had my ass handed to me even more, as I would't have been able to go for the tried and tested method of "build a bunker on your objective, grab his objective on turn 5". Ok, that would still work, my stuff would just die more.

But what's to say about the necrons? Well:
Mass wraiths is good.
Mass scarabs is good. Get your spyders.
Crypteks are good. Destruction with solar pulse, dispair with veil of darkness and nightmare shroud.

Sample list for 1750 points:
Overlord, warscythe, weave
Command barge
Overlord, warscythe, weave
Command barge
Royal court, 3x harbinger of destruction, 1x harbinger of destruction with solar pulse, 1x harbinger of dispair, veil of darkness
Royal court, 3x harbinger of destruction, 1x harbinger of destruction with solar pulse, 1x harbinger of dispair, veil of darkness
5 necron warriors
5 necron warriors
5 necron warriors
6 canoptek wraiths, 4 x whip coils
6 canoptek wraiths, 4 x whip coils
5 canoptek scarabs
3 canoptek spyders

You bought search lights? Good for you. Still, shooting isn't going to be too effective for the enemy when you turn the lights out for two turns with solar pulse.
Veil makes warriors mobile, but you need to hide them still or got to ground. They are just there to be cheap and score.
The rest is all out attack. Wraiths are durable, safe from shooting through solar pulse and should always hit first because of the coils. S6 rending makes them a threat to vehicles too. Spyders shit out more scarabs who hope to get the enemy armor weak enought to kill it with close combat. Mop up with court or overlord.
Should work I guess.