1. Warmachine/Hordes beginner's tournament

Time for Warmachine! Fear Menoth!

So, we had a beginner's tournament at our club. Yes, it was almost a month ago, sue me. ;P

1. Warmachine/Hordes beginner's tournament: 15 Points, one list, death clock format

Protectorate of Menoth:
Grand Scrutator Severius +6
Reckoner 8
Hierophant 2
Exemplar Bastions (Leader and 4 Grunts) 8
The Wrack (3 wracks)1
Vassal of Menoth 2


1. game: Evangelista Sie
List: Circle of Orboros: Kromac the Ravenous, Pureblood Warpwolf, Warpwolf Stalker
Mission: Gauntlet
First turn: her

She had first turn and ran forward, I buffed my stuff and kept my troops back a little to goad her to get even closer, but still be able to contest her zone. She took the bait and the stalker got shot first and is then mopped up by the bastions. Her pureblood does some damage to my reckoner, but it kept standing. Kromac was out of range to do any damage. Next turn her pureblood bit the dust, leaving only Kromac and not options to win, because Severius was out of her charge range. Kromac did some damage to the bastions killing two barely on his feat turn and then got hit by everything Menoth still had standing on my turn.
>> Assassination win, 1 CP


2. game: Johannes Fink
List: Circle of Orboros: Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris, Feral Warpwolf, Pureblood Warpwolf
Mission: Gauntlet
First turn: him

Circle... how I hate them. ;)
Well, I buff my troops and we then both ran to the middle to contest and he then hit my bastions using Kaya's feat. None die as usual. He then tried to throw my reckoner with vision and enliven on him and promtly smashed my vassal with it doing no damage to it.. Lastly he used Laris's animus to teleport Kaya to him.... and promptly lost the game. Yay for me for remembering there is a killbox! ;)

If he hadn't killed himself, well... Healing all bastions with the hierophant and then walk them up to him would have been an option. Or waiting for the clock to run out.
>> Assassination win, 0 CP.


3. game: Bernhard "Bernhard" Bornatowicz
List: Cygnar tier list: Captain Jeremiah Kraye, Hunter, Sentinel, Ironclad, Rangers
Mission: Gauntlet
First turn: him

I hate pursuit! Buffing up my own objective like he did would also have helped a little. ;)
Again I'm slow, they are fast, yay. So he ran his rangers and hunter forward a little and shields his objective with the rest. He put a marker on the objective with Kraye, his shots were all out of range. I casted my buff spells and ran the bastions to meet the rangers, the reckoner nearer to his objective and the vassal after him. I was in his range then so took some fire on the bastions and took a little damage. The vassal got hit by the hunter and took two damage points. My bastions then charged his rangers, killing some. The reckoner took a shot at the sentinel and took out the shield, I think. The bastions then get charged by the ironclad in turn and some died. The hunter again shot the vassal and did another two damage points, still leaving him alive. Kraye then put pursuit on my reckoner. Ironclad and the remaining rangers got killed on my turn, Kraye ran away to go after Severius, who had to move up to keep everything within eye of menoth. His hunter took a shot at my objective doing some damage and the vassal finally died by a shot from Kraye. The sentinel did nothing and got trashed on my turn. I then move Severius further away, wich was an error I suppose. Keeping him closer to the bastions would have brought Kraye into charge range of the bastions and the reckoner, but I decide to go after the objective. The rest of the game was me running away with Severius and him going after me with Kraye while everything else from me was out of range or failed to damage his objective. Before time ran out I decided to get to his objective to get some focus on the reckoner. On the way, Kraye recasted pursuit on my bastions and wrecked my objective and I tried to destroy the hunter with Severius, leaving me without focus, but with defenders ward in the open. Kraye got to move with pursuit (it turns out NOT moving still counts as a full advance in game terms) and got Severius in charge range. Well, that could have gone better. ;)
>> Assassination loss, 0 CP.


4. game: Stefan "Sir_Alex" Moser
List: Khador: Kommander Strakhov, Berserker, Decimator, Widowmakers, Manhunter
Mission: Gauntlet
First turn: me

I ran everything forward to get to the objectives and he moved up and took some shots but was out of range. I ran my bastions on the middle and right objective, he tried to claim the other with his widowmakers, but it disappeared on turn 2, so I got my bastions on the two remaining objectives. He charged the bastions with the berserker, but didn't do damage. So he feated with Strakhov and charged him in too. The bastions take some hits but all remain standing. Manhunter charged in too, still leaving them all standing. Decimator took some shots doing nothing. Well, hey there, warcaster without focus. I managed to miss Strakhov three times with Severius' death sentence and three weaponmaster hits on the charge still leave him standing. In the end, the reckoner got to club him.
>> Assassination win, 1 CP

Conclusion:
The list sure can take a hit and still wreck face afterwards, but it is slow. Getting outmaneuvered is a pain in the ass, but on this point level it's not that much of a problem. The list did function as expected, but on 15 points I will use a second vassal next time to get more flexibility out of the reckoner.

What I find interesting is, that scenarios are purely for show.
You run forward, keep the opponent from the objectives and then put the smack down on the enemy caster, ignoring everything else. So, third game was lost mainly because I didn't go for the caster right from the start and then could not keep up with Krayes mobility and pursuit.
Playing for scenario, while "easier" to achieve, also gets you less points in a tournament, because killing the caster also gets you the points for his battlegroup too and you need not kill anyone else.

Final result:
Second place after Bernhard's Cygnar.
I'm pretty pleased with that.
Also, I got a coin, yay! ;D

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.

I proudly present

My dice!

Welcome to my new blog where I show you what my dice can do. Or to be more precise what they CAN'T do.

As the game systems start to pile up and I don't just play Space Marines anymore or just 40k for that matter, I decided to open a new blog for all my misadventures in tabletop gaming.

Expect the usual madness here and with luck, more updates. ;)


Link to old blog: http://chapterkeep.blogspot.co.at/