40K at the Forge: Epilogue of a tournament

Orks vs Space marines

With my first tournament over with it’s time to look over what I have learnt and what I would have done differently if I was to do it again. First of all the tournament was very fun, I had 3 great games all in 1 day, faced 3 new opponents who played very differently to what I was used to and had to try tactics I have never really used. Even playing at such a different points level was an enjoyment, so I will defiantly have to go to more in the future.

Game 1 Vs Eldar

I had never played against Eldar before, I have only ever used them, I was very aware of what he was able to do with his units (bar the warp hunter, but I always welcome the addition of forge world units). It was also very interesting to see another person’s view of a 1000 point eldar army which was quite different to my own. I went for a more manoeuvrable force with the vypers and falcon, where as he went for a static army with defence line and Eldrad using a small unit of bikes to grab line breaker at the end.  I wish I had talked to the guy a little more to see what he thought of my army and how I played the game.

So what did I learn?

·         Don’t get greedy, and keep the objectives in mind. I got caught up in the moment and tried to get an extra kill point which ended up with me drawing the game instead of winning. Live and learn.

·         It is possible to just avoid the scary units, but I feel I could have just ganged up and used every scatter laser in my army to kill the dire avengers and possibly instant kill Eldrad in a single turn.

·         Cheap wraithlords are good distracting unit, he used one against me and it couldn’t be ignored. Maybe I should try it in the future.

Dark Angels vs Deathguard

Game 2 Vs Tyranids

This game was against a large bug horde, I usually face nidzilla lists so it was a nice change to face something different. I thing that struck me was very little synapse. He has a unit of warriors with prime and a unit of zoanthropes. While this isn’t a massive issue for him, as if his units of hormagaunts were outside synapse range they get rage... not exactly a down side. But the hive guard and termagants would have lurked and done nothing. Regardless it didn’t come into play in out game but it would have been something I would have worried about writing the list. To be honest I wasn’t scared when I saw him fully deployed, he made a mistake there but I think he will have learnt from it, don’t have all your anti-tank all in 1 corner, especially when your regular infantry can’t deal with Armour values. Not that my army list can really talk, both my AV 13-14 destroyers are the falcon and the fire dragons inside it, but that was just a risk I took as I didn’t expect to come across any real armour. Either way I feel I dealt with the army well and correctly.

What did I learn?

·         When faced with a line of enemy, focus on 1 section at a time, I focused on the big threats, the Biovore, and warriors, then the hormagaunts as they were close threats.

·         I need to make sure I’m not closer to the enemy than I have to be, I got to close to the prime and lost a vyper, I got to close to the hive guard and lost the falcon. These were both unnecessary.

Game 3 vs Necrons

Never faced Necrons before, they are surprisingly different from other armies just because the damn things get back up after you have shot them in the face. The range of war gear is nice and to be honest, the army took me by surprise, but not next time I face them. Destroyer lords are hard, T6 and an ap 2 weapon can wreck face quickly and easily, the fact they can move 12 inches is just a plus. I feel I miss played this game though. If I focused my force in the middle of the table with the vypers being the only unit on the flank I would have been able to fight off the warriors once they go out of the night scythe. The dire avengers out on their own was a mistake, they should have been with everyone else so support each other.

What did I learn?

·         When setting up first I should consentrate my forces instead of risking stranding a unit or two.

·         I made the right decision going first to try and kill as many necrons as possible, if it wasn’t for night fight I could have probably killed off the necron warriors with my army.

·         I need to get a better tactic for night fight, just hoping that I can shoot a few guys down in the night didn’t work, better ideas must be found.

·         Necrons are hard, and I can’t expect to just shoot them down.

·         When shooting at necrons take out a unit at a time so they can’t get back up.

After all is said and done I came about 8^th out of 12. As it was my first tournament I can’t grumble with that, I just need to improve the next time I go to a tournament. 1 win, 1 loss and 1 draw is respectable I guess.

Orks vs Necrons

Taking my game further

The list that I took to the tournament I really liked, it was very different from the wraithstar list I use at 1500, and focused on using target priority and weight of fire power to win the day, rather than smashing your face in with cheap wraithguard tricks involving dark eldar. Having the same mission for every game was a little awkward, and if I knew before hand I would have dropped the 5 man dire avenger squad in favour of upgrading the second war walker squad to have scatter lasers to engage the enemy from a distance. With the other 30 points I would either have upgraded the vipers to have shuriken cannons as well or just boost the 8 dire avengers to 10. Not 100% sure, but if it was objective based I think I could have done ok.

To try and improve my performance for future tournaments I'm going to give you the top 2 lists and see what I could have done if I played against them, and if that can shine light on what I need to change in my list.

Space Marines – 1^st Place

Librarian – force axe

10 tactical marines – missile launcher, plasma gun

5 scouts – telion, missile launcher

5 scouts – (outflanking)

Storm talon – assault cannon, heavy bolters

Storm talon – assault cannon, heavy bolter

5 Sternguard – drop pod

Aegis defence line – lascannon

This is the list that took the tournament with the only clean score sheet, having all 3 victories. Talking to the people who played him it was the storm talons which caused the great issues; having straifing run almost guaranteed it hitting every turn and just the number of shots they put out was an issue. So what’s my plan?

Assuming I go first, no night fight

First turn I  would target the tactical marines with all of my shots possible, so that’s 24 re-rollable scatter laser shots, 12 vyper scatter laser shots, 4 guardian and 12 shuriken cannon shots. Hopefully that would kill off the tactical marines but I doubt it. In response the drop pod would come in and the sternguard and destroy the war walkers, that’s obvious. The scouts missile launcher plus the lascannon would take out the falcon.

Turn 2 the dragons should kill off the sternguard. Then the shots from the army would target the scouts and hopefully kill maybe 4 off, leaving the librarian and telion. He responds with both storm talons come in and wreck the vypers, the scouts come in for line breaker.

Turn 3 and I'm in trouble, with the war walkers gone I can’t really target the flyers, I might be able to kill off the scouts on the lascannon if I'm lucky but I'm not confident. I feel the games over as the talons can just pick my units apart with their shots.

So that game which just happened in my head failed turn 3, damn. Well I need some form of Anti-Air, so possibly an aegis with quad gun? Would that have helped? Probably, can you use interceptor to shoot at the sternguard when they come out of a drop pod? I think you can but I'm not 100% sure. Either way I can see why he came first.

Space marines vs sisters of battle

Chaos space marines – 2^nd

Chaos lord – mark of khorne, axe of blind fury, juggernaught

Cultists

Cultists

5 havocs – lascannons

Heldrake

Khorne berzerkers

This army I think I could deal with a little bit better, I would try and kill the chaos lord with the falcon and fire dragons. The havocs would be the first to get targeted by the war walkers. The rest of the force would just try and pick apart the berzerkers and cultists. While I’m not sure I would win this game I would have fared better than against the space marines. The heldrake would again have been a thorn in my side, the list I took just can’t deal with flyers.

Both of the winning lists took flyers and could deal with them, for future games I will have to take measures to reduce the threat. So what means I either need an aegis defence line or maybe a flyer of my own, razorwing jetfighter perhaps? You never know the new eldar codex in a few months might have a sexy new flyer for me to play with. Either way next time I enter into competitive play I will have to take flyers into account next time.

All good things...

Well that’s the end of my account, it was a very enjoyable experience I must say and would suggest that any one should have a go. From what I understand they will be hosting another tournament sometime in the future which I will definitely try to get to. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading the battle reports and good luck in your future tournaments.

Sisters of battle vs eldar (after the tournament)