ARMY OF THE WEEK: Batrep: Darkside Comics tournament (May 14th)

Well, Friday the 13th struck late for me on Saturday during the tournament. Some blunders on my part and some poor list choices added to me walking away with one draw and 2 losses. We had a great turnout of about 12-14 players I think, several new faces. Sadly, I did not get to play a single one. I ended up playing Smoogie (a regular at Darkside), Chris (my friend I went to the store with) and Brian (Darkside Owner and ringer due to someone leaving).

My list was this at 2500:
Shraken in Command squad with Bodyguards x2, 4 Melta Guns, Astropath and Chimera
Psyker Battle Squad with Chimera
3 Chimeras with Vet squads, two had 3 plasma guns and one had 3 melta guns
Another Vet squad with 3 melta guns in a Vendetta
Squadron of 2 Executioner tanks with Plasma Sponsons and Heavy Flamers
Squadron of 2 Leman Russ tanks, both had lascannons, one had heavy bolters on the side
Manticore

Game 1 vs Smoogie (Biker Marine List)

He had Librarian on Bike, Captain on bike with some wargear, lots of bike core troop squadrons with attack bikes. Lots of melta with flamers and plasma if I recall. 65 bikes from what I recall.

He won the dice toss, took his pyramid side (that is what I call corner to corner down the middle and 12" back as your deployment). His side was packed with bikes. We had a chaos table with fair amount of scenery on it. I setup in a defensive line on the other side. This was a capture and control mission with 5 objectives on the table. 2 near me, two near him and one off to our side. I figured his plan was simple, tear me up quickly, then flee back to grab what he could and prevent me from taking much.

Prayed for a 6. Didn't get it. His first turn was, you guessed it! Turbo Boost! Zoom!

My turn, moved some, shot a few bikes, killed a few.

Then Turn 2 happened. He got near me.....at this point it was a game of hit and run. He would go after my vehicles, killing some, I would hammer his bike squadrons. He would fall back when Shraken or the Ogryns threatened to assault but still got to shoot the snot out of him.

By turn 4 it was wrap up as the clock was ticking. I was able to take two objectives. He turbo boosted most of his stuff on 3. I was able to contest one and I was able to kill 2 out of 3 leftover units guarding one objective. The other two was firmly held going to ground after a turbo boost...2+ ack!

In retrospect, I should have hit the one unit with the psyker weaken resolve and lowered their LD. Kicking him off the objective for a minor win. Instead we ended up with a draw. He got one bonus point and I picked up two bonus points. All in all, I did well vs what could have been a nasty game, He only had two full squads left to survive the game I know I wiped out 3 and killed both characters.

Second Game vs Chris (Space Wolves)

Drive 90 miles and play your best friend that lives down the road! Whoo! Chris drew his last game against a Grey Knights list and had one bonus point if I recall. Luck has it we usually play every other tournament or we get someone else local that drove long distance to get there.

His list: 3 Rune Priests, 4 Grey Hunter squads with meltas and power weapons with Rhinos. Three had 8 and one had 9. Several Wolf Guard to fill the Grey Hunter squads, two to the Scout Squads with power fists and combimeltas and one Terminator with Cyclone Launcher to one Long Fang squad., 3 Long Fang squads with 5 missiles, 2 Scout Squads with power weapon and melta gun. Last, a Typhoon speeder.

This mission was VP based and was in the Area 51 table. Desert table with little to no scenery with a runway strip down it. Last time we played on this table, my IG dusted his Salamanders. Last time we played we was on a cityfight table and he clobbered me then. He won the dice toss, gave me first turn, I setup some nice fire lines. He holds one squad with a priest in reserve, the speeder and scouts. Then rolls a 6 to steal the first turn! Arg!

Game was pretty straight forward as we figured, luck of the dice and he had more of it. He got in good and pounded the crap out of me. A few immobile results slammed most of my Russ tanks making a firm believer in not taking squadrons. His scouts caused me enough problems to commit the reserved unit of Ogryn to help clean up the mess. the scouts was quick to deal with but had caused enough damage to be annoying to me. The Long Fangs was passing more cover saves than I could ever guess, hard to think that sometimes Chris rolls more 1's than binary at times, oh wait that is terminators!

Chris wiped the board and I left the table with a fat goose egg.

Game 3 vs Brian (Chaos)

He had Demon Prince of Nurgle with wings and warptime, rhino with Plague Marines, 2 Land Raiders, two units of zerkers, Abbadon, 2 units of Obliterators, 1 Unit of Terminators with 4 combi melta guns. Before anyone thinks this is illegal one of the Land Raiders was purchased with the Elites choice of the Terminators.I think he had some bikes also, but not sure now, didn't keep a list.

The mission was kill points with a 12" deployment. He won the roll off and it was news from the start. Anything that could move over 12" was worth 3 VPs, well hell, that is most of my army. HQs was worth 3 also, so I had a ton of kill points. Nothing nowhere near his.

Game went rather poorly for me, dice luck was bad and he had some amazing dice luck. When it was over, I think I blew up one Land Raider, killed one zerker squad and that was it,maybe something else, but not much....he had tons of points on me.

Things learned:
1) Squadrons SUCK. Say it with me! They SUCK! Immobile=DEAD. so on a pen a 4-6 is bad, that means 50% of the time your toast. Not worth the benefit to ignore stun to shaken results. Saw some players have ok luck with them, but not me...they was a curse from the start. I advise against even thinking about taking them.

2) Ogryns ROCK! Sure, they can die to instant death in some cases like STR 10 and Force Weapons, but damm they are intimidating and not to be under estimated with a psyker in the mist. He is tossing 2d6 STR 6 shots, then they dump another 12 to 15 shots (depending if your in the chimera or not) of STR 5 shots., It forces several armor saves that makes it very much worthwhile to consider. It is an investment but think about it as they have 3 wounds each, so 5 is 15 wounds, the vet squad only has 10, add the character, they have 12. Not too shabby with their stats also....

3) Pay attention, this cost me the first game for a minor win. Using the moral power for the pysker squad would have tilted the balance. Granted that game I failed TWO out of 4 rolls to use powers.

4) Game two taught me to go back to my old reliables, scouts and infiltrate. I could have harassed and done much better if I had Al'Rahem, Storm Troopers, Marbro and my other sneaky types slipping around back field.

5) Same for Game 3, it was hard for me to do much as he kept away from me and sent only select assault squads into the army.I needed the element of surprise to keep him off balance. Because I lacked this element he took me apart and kept his losses to a minimum.