On Saturday January 30th 2010 10 brave souls from Peterborough embarked on a journey that would be full of bloodshed and tears.
Here in Peterborough we have a very diverse group of players that all bring their own ideas and tactics to the game. We managed to rally up 10 of these people for a tournament in Perry Sound on Saturday. It was a doubles tournament using the Ard Boyz point scheme. I decided to team up with my good buddy Jon. We are two very unique players and we share our love of strange and unique tactics that leave your opponent wondering what the hell happened. Sadly our list is pretty hardcore (it is an Ard Boyz tournament after all) but as Jon would say “Half of us are Tau, so give us a break”
I would love to give a shout out to Tammy in Perry Sound and thank her for a great time. Return to Hellmouth is a Doubles Tournament that they hold every year at the Don Cherry’s up there and after attending last year I knew that I would be returning every year after. Perry Sound has some of the best people you can meet in the world. They are always there to lend a hand and they are friendly as friendly can be. Any more friendly and they would be Pod people.
For this Tournament teams share a force organization chart. Each person has to bring 1 HQ and 1 Troop after that each can bring up to 1 Fast Attack/Elite/Heavy and there is also a floating slot that can be used. Only one team member may use each floating spot so for example you can’t both take an extra Heavy Support but one of you can take an extra Heavy Support and one of you take an extra Fast Attack.
Our List:
Imperial Guard (Peachykeen)
HQ 1 Company Command Squad
Upgrades: Chimera W/ Multi-Laser & Heavy Flamer, 3 Meltaguns, Regimental Standard, Krak Grenades
Total Points: 215
Why? I’m sure that everyone would agree that Company Command Squad is always a solid choice for the guard. Being able to have four plasma or meltas all with BS4 is something to drool over and let’s not forget about the dreaded Officer of the Fleet. If you reserve with this bad boy on the table chances are your coming in piece by piece and against guard that’s exactly how we want you. The regimental Standard is for Jon. He had the worry of his Broadsides taking some heavy fire and with only a four man squad if one dies then they have to take a dreaded LD7 test and that’s never fun. We all know how easy it is to make Loota’s run like a fat kid after an ice cream truck. We are only worried about keeping the Broadsides on the table for about two turns because after that chances are they have helped kill any threat that they are required to kill.
Elite 1 - Daemonhunters Inquisitor W/ two Hierophants & two Mystics
Upgrades: Chimera W/ Multi-laser & Heavy Bolter, Psychic Hood, Emperor's Tarot
Total Points: 168
Why? HELL WHY NOT? I personally think they need to make a Faq saying you can no longer us them in Guard armies. For about 83 points (if you don’t bring a Chimera) you get a LD10 Psychic Hood that works for the entire board, You make deep striking close to you a suicide mission, AND you have a better chance of getting turn 1. We brought this bad boy for a few reasons. First one is Eldar. They are a strong army and this will help to shut down their Psychic powers. A Seer Council on bikes without Fortune is most likely a dead one. Another reason is the dreaded drop pod lists. Normally there is not a lot of fear from this but if they drop 3 Ironclad or Venerable Dreadnoughts turn one right in our face that could be something that would scare the hell out of us. With the Mystics chances are those dreadnoughts are dead before they even shoot at us “thnx for the Kill Points”.
Troop 1 Veteran Squad
Upgrades: Chimera W/ Multi-Laser & Heavy Flamer, 3 Meltaguns
Total Points: 155
Why? 3 BS4 meltaguns in a Chimera. Enough Said.
Troop 2 Veteran Squad
Upgrades: Chimera W/ Multi-Laser & Heavy Flamer, 3 Flamers
Total Points: 140
Why? We knew that one of the teams going was going to have 45 Lootas so we thought to our self “If we get turn one and drive the valk with the 3 flamers inside of it into the heart of the Orcs then we can kill a squad of lootas (or most of them) with the Valk and another squad (or most of them) with the 3 flamers. We also figured our AT was already pretty solid and we wanted another way to deal with horde armies.
Fast Attack 1 Vendetta Gunship Squadron
Total Points: 130
Why? 3 twin linked lascannons that can either outflank, Deep strike or scout in AV12 for only 130 points. It can also move 24” and get a cover save a turn for the last minute rush for the win. There is really NOTHING bad about this unit.
Fast Attack 2 Valkyrie Assault Carrier Squadron
Upgrades: 2 Multiple Rocket Pods, Multi-Laser
Total Points: 130
Why? Ah yes the Vendetta’s brother. It has all the same strengths as the Vendetta but it’s for the times we need to pwn some horde instead of tanks. Being able to move 12” and still fire a 3 shot str 6 weapon and drop two Str 4 pie plates is nothing to overlook.
Heavy Support 1 Medusa Ordnance Battery
Upgrades: Enclosed Crew Compartment, 2 Heavy Bolters
Total Points: 300
Why? Two Str10 AP2 Pie plates a turn with range 36. It’s hard to say no to that if you ask me. This is for a lot of things really. Nobs, Terminators, and even normal Space Marines. One of the problems tau face right now is they don’t have any AP. They have a lot of str 5 shots but there AP is pretty lacking so that’s what the guard are here for. The Tau kill the tanks and the Guard help clean up and get in the way.
Tau (Jon)
HQ 1 Commander Shas'el
Upgrades: Twin-linked Flamer, Arbursting Fragmentation, HW Multi Tracker
Total Points: 81
Why? In Jon’s words this is the “I have to take an HQ. HQ.” Im not going to lie it does have its moments for instance we played one game where it came down turn two from Deep Strike and killed a full squad of lootas and then went on to cause a distraction.
3 squads of Fire Warriors all the same
Composition: 6 Fire Warriors
Upgrades: Devilfish Troop Carrier, Disruption Pod, Multi-tracker, Targeting Array, Smart Missile System
Total Points: 180x3 = 540
Why? Let’s be honest after the broadsides and the Pathfinders the tau are not bringing that much to the table. The Devilfish’s bring some pretty good fire Str 5 fire power and being able to have a cover save from anything 12” or more away makes them a great unit to get in front of my Heavy Support so I can get them a cover save. Once we take out the other player’s mobility the Fire Warriors move in and help lay down some fire power. They are also our main Objective holder because people are a lot more worried about killing the Guard then the Tau and we know this. We went into this tournament knowing that the Guard will be taking most of the shots.
Fast Attack 1 Pathfinder Team
Composition: 8 Pathfinders
Upgrades: Devilfish Troop Carrier, Disruption Pod, Multi-tracker, Targeting Array, Smart Missile System, Decoy Launchers
Total Points: 221
Why? Oh sorry did you smoke? Oh your 50% covered? Well let’s just get rid of that cover save while my Str10 AP1 Rail Guns put a whole the size of a house through your tank. That’s pretty much their job. Simple remove cover saves for the broadsides and if the dice are on our side give them better BS also.
Heavy Support 1 & 2 Broadside Battle Suit Team (Both are two man squads with 2 Shield Drones)
Composition: 2 Broadside Battle Suits
Upgrades: Team Leader W/ HW Target Lock, HW Drone Controller, 2 Shield Drones, HW Blacksun Filter, 2 Advanced Stabilization Systems
Total Points: 203x2 = 406
Why? Nothing pops an AV 14 tank better then a STR10 AP1 Rail Gun to the face of the driver. These suckers pop tanks for fun. Yes it would be great if they were ordnance but can we really have it all? That’s pretty much their job and they do it without flaw. The sad part is they are only LD7 so if one of those shield drones dies then they are taking a Leadership test. We brought a Standard to help us keep them on the table for the first two or three turns. After that they are on their own.
All in all we have a solid doubles list that works well together. We had about ten practice games to get the synergy down and I was pretty happy that we did because there were some pretty solid lists at the tournament. So without further ado our Battle report.
Round 1:
This Mission was kill Points with modifications. The modifications were; Troops = 3, HQ = 1, Fast Attack/Elite/Heavy = 2, Dedicated Transports = 1
Dark Eldar + Tau
HQ - Lelith W/ 6 Wytches and a Succubus in a raider dark lance
Troop 1 – 8 Wyches and 1 Succubus in a raider with a dark lance
Troop 2 - 8 Wyches and 1 Succubus in a raider with a dark lance
Troop 3 - 7 Wyches and 1 Succubus in a raider with a dark lance
Fast Attack 1 – 3 Jetbikes and 1 Succubus ( 2 blasters )
Fast Attack 1 – 3 Jetbikes and 1 Succubus ( 2 blasters )
HQ – Commander Shadow sun W/ 3 shield drones
Elite 1 – 3 Crisis Suits W/ Missile Pods & Burst cannons W/ 2 Shield Drones
Elite 2 – 3 Crisis Suits W/ Missile Pods & Burst cannons W/ 2 Shield Drones
Troop 1 – 6 Fire Warriors in a Devilfish
Troop 2 – 6 Fire Warriors in a Devilfish
Heavy Support 1 – 3 Broadsides
Heavy Support 2 – 3 Broadsides
This army had some pretty good shooty aspects to it. We knew that the broadsides and crisis suits could put enough hurting on us to allow the wyches to get close enough to put a hurt on us. Lucky for us we managed to get turn 1. We deployed really close together in the middle of the table and they deployed really tight in a corner using a building to block line of sight with most of there tanks.
Scout move: I used the scout move to get my valk close to there Jetbikes that they wanted to try to flank us with. I put a vet squad W/ melta's in the valk and I managed to get with in 12” of them with my scout move. I managed to put my vendetta into a place were his broadsides would not get a cover save. The tried to hide behind the building because they forgot about our scout move.
Our Turn 1: The valk moved 12” and the vets got out. The valk then pointed at the other squad of jetbikes. Jon got his fire warriors out of two of his devilfish and started to move 12” towards the building that they held up in. Our entire army pointed at the building to start to suppress as much fire as we could. Lucky for Jon and I this was a very good turn for us. My vets managed to wipe out the first Jetbike squad. After this the valk managed to get the other squad down to 1 bike and the Succubus. The Vendetta was earning its points by killing two broadsides ( he also failed his moral test bye bye broadsides ). Jon used his devil fish to get the remaining bike squad down to just the succubus. Jon fired his 4 broadsides at the full squad of broadsides and managed to get two of them down. Turn one we managed to get rid of 5 of there 6 broadsides so both of us were very happy.
There turn 1: The Jetbike succubus managed to charge and kill the vet squad that came out of the valk and the valk itself was taken down sadly by the remaining broadside. All four of the raider moved 12” and fired there dark lances but Jon made his 4 up cover save thnx for D pods. The crisis suits fired there missile pods but did not successful kill anything. Liliths squad and another wytch squad got out to try to assult the two empty Devil fish but had fleet rolls of 1 and 2 and then found themselves out of assault range by only 1 inch each.
Our turn 2: Jons HQ deep striked in and flamed a squad of wytches to death while my vendetta managed to finish off there final broadside. Our medusa's were finally in place to start dropping pie plates and managed to stun one of the raiders and destroyed another. Jon managd to finish off the Succubus on the bike with his devil fish. We knew that the crisis suits would be a small problem so we wanted to focus all of our fire power on the Dark Eldar. We managed to finish off another tank with the broadsides and kill Liltihs squad also this turn.
There turn 2: Shadow sun got close enough to destroy one of the empty devilfish and another wytch squad charged a squad of 6 fire warriors that we put out to slow down there wytches. Lucky for u they were unable to kill the Tau HQ with the crisis suits because it earned us another battle point. There other squad of Wytches got out but failed to get into the assault.
Our turn 3: My Vendetta managed to kill a raider while the medusa's and jons broadsides managed to kill the other raiders. We shot the rest of our fire power at the wytches and managed to finish off the Dark Eldar. At this time they had all of there crisis suits and there two devil fish with 6 fire dragons in each.
There turn 3: They moved out with there devil fish just hoping to get a few more kill points and shot everything at a squad of 6 fire warriors but Jon was just making those cover saves like it was gods will. After this we called it.
The people that we played against were two very good guys. We had a fun time and talked a lot before and after the tournament with them. I would play them again anytime.
We got 23 points for this round.
Round 2 coming soon....
No comments:
Post a Comment