Equinox 40k Tourney Report - Rounds 1 & 2

Hi all,

I'm relatively new to blogging, so thought I would start with something I'm familiar with; a tourney report. I'll break this up into 3 articles of two games a piece, as i get time to write this over the next few days. Last weekend saw the second annual Equinox tournament. 6 rounds of 40k over 2 days, at 1850 points, and 40 participants battling it out. I was defending the title after winning last year, and due to a hectic RL year, was running pretty much the same list as last year. Rather than completely re-jig my my 1750 list that I have comfortably tuned, for the extra 100 points I just added a token 5 man loota unit, and some random vehicle upgrades I wouldn't usually opt for. As such, my list was as follows:

Warboss - Power Klaw, Bosspole, Eavy Armour, Cybork Body, Attack Squig, Kombi Skorcha

Big Mek - Bosspole, KFF, Grot Oiler

5 Lootas

8 Meganobs - kombi rokkit, kombi skorcha, dedicated battle wagon with roller, plank, red paint and armour plating

12 Trukk Boyz - nob with pk, bosspole, trukk with plank, ram and red paint

30 Shoota Boyz - nob with pk, bosspole, 3 big shootas

30 Shoota Boyz - nob with pk, bosspole, 3 big shootas

11 Gretchin - 1 runtherd

4 Deffkoptas - TL Big Shootas, 1 buzzsaw

3 Killer Kans - Grotzookas

3 Killer Kans - Big Shootas

After a bizarre plane ride with an awkwardly forward but reasonably attractive older lady beside me, I stepped out of the airport into the heaviest, most torrential downpour I had ever experienced in my life. In the time it took to get from the terminal to my friends car, the water had gone through my luggage, through all my clothes, into my army case, amongst other places. Just one of many reasons I hope Auckland falls into the ocean. After a quick bout of retail therapy I was ready for a weekend of war games shenanigans though, so off we went!

Scoring:

The layout, as mentioned - would be 6 games. A loss was worth 0, a draw 5, and a win 10. From there, each mission has a secondary objective. If you achieve this and your opponent does not, you get 5 points. If you both achieve it, or neither achieve it, you each get 2 points.

Round 1:

Mission: Seize Ground*

Secondary Mission: Lose your most expensive unit**

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Opponent: Simon Farrell (Orks)

*Five evenly spaced objectives, all worth 0 points each. Each time a unit dies, the closest objective gains a point in value.

** You had to lose your own most expensive unit here, rather than destroy the enemies one, which was a very weird twist.

Simon Had:

Warboss - Usual Toys

Big Mek - KFF

Kommandos - with snikrot and 2 burnas

20 Boyz - Power Klaw nob in a deffrolla battle wagon

20 Boyz - Power Klaw nob in a deffrolla battle wagon

10 Nobz - Unique equipment out the wazoo including a handful of claws, FNP, ws5, all the usual suspects. Dedicated battlewagon with reinforced ram.

~10 Grots - 1 Runtherd

Deffkopta - Buzzsaw

Deffkopta - Buzzsaw

Deffkopta - Buzzsaw

3 Killer Kans - Grotzookas

Simon won the roll for first turn and set his 3 battle wagons up centrally, kans slightly to his left - but outside of the kff bubble, and the koptas with one in the mid and one on each flank to be able to alpha strike a vehicle where ever it went on the table.

I deployed across from him with the wagon and trukk in the centre, but a line of boyz directly in front to protect from any t1 assaults from koptas, but used the split from each squad in this point so even if they could only move ~2 inches with a bad difficult terrain roll, it would still be enough to create a gap. Kans went on each side for a fairly symmetrical deployment and the rest of the boyz behind those kans.

I placed the lootas in a higher piece of terrain for good LOS, and used the grots as a line behind on the board edge to protect the lootas from snikrot. The koptas went to where I could create a nuisance with them and if I seized, hopefully do some damage, but Simon won the roll for scouting first, and used the move to block any potential initiative seizing destruction.

His Turn 1: After failing to seize the initiative, Simon didn't bother moving his koptas as they now had nothing up close worth hitting. He drove his wagons forward a little, but ultimately knew that this was going to be a stand off to see who risked their wagon(s) first. Simon blew up my trukk with some kopta shooting. I was going to use this to block his nobs battlewagon, so this was immediately a pain in the butt!

His Kans pushed forward, but remained outside of the KFF range.

My Turn 1: I responded by killing a couple of deffkoptas with big shoota fire, and sent my own koptas to take a central assault-blocking position. I could see now this game would definitely be a fight for the middle objective ,and it would be one I could not guarantee that he wouldn't contest. As such, I had to engineer a way to make one of my closer objectives worthwhile. I pulled the trukkboyz back to it, protecting the rear of my battlewagon from a snikrot attack whilst intentionally bunched them up to be too juicy a target for his Skorchas to say no to. Hopefully he would choose them to kill, and I would in return kill them, making one of the objectives in my side worth 2 points.

The lootas opened up on his kans, killing 2 and shooting the weapon off the third. After joking about how awesomely reliable a lone kombi-rokkit is for your anti tank, I fired it at the side of one of his wagons. Unsurprisingly, given our joking - it hit, penned, and immobilized his battle wagon.

Turn 2: Snikrot stayed off board for now, some shooting at koptas but not doing much. Meanwhile his battle wagons shuffled a little, but he was still out of my range for most things, and wanted me to make the first move. His grots came on and progressed towards one of his own objectives, worth 1 point from me killing a kopta there.

My Turn 2: The deffkoptas now had a target, a battle wagon in front of them that was immobilized, so in they went. Everything else shuffled up a little, but ultimately I was going to continue the dance and see if I could ramp up the pressure to make him act first. I shuffled my 30 man squad on my right up a bit, to be ready to jump on the contents of the immobilized wagon, but continued to exploit that without stikkbomb chukkas, any direct assaults from his boyz into mine would be suicide, due to me chilling out in cover.

The koptas sadly only ripped the gun off, while the lootas merely stopped a wagon from shooting.

Turn 3: Like a giant tasty fish, Snikrot showed up and took the bait hook line and sinker. They flamed the trukk boyz, and I was able to pull casualties to be out of assault range, protecting other targets from a multi-charge. These remaining trukk boyz would eventually go on to fail a moral check and disappear off the board, ticking up a point in the objective I wanted them to. His Kan tried to bail out the battlewagon, but unfortunately it was wrecked and they hung around despite watching one of their comrades get clipped in half.

My Turn 3: This was the turn I needed to start making big moves, but couldnt risk losing everything. My grotzooka kans advanced to weaken his boyz squad newly disembarked, while also protecting my battlewagon.

The boyz squad on my left pulled back to snikrot, shooting them up and assaulting the remaining models. Snikrot held out on his own, already wounded - he needed a double 6 to survive, and got just that! This was bad news for me, as it would mean the destruction of this squad if his remaining wagon squad saw the opportunity and went for it.

Grotzooka fire with other big shootas here and there whittled 10 of the 20 boyz from his wrecked trukk, before a multi assault from my boyz on my right went in, failing spectacularly. Whilst they managed to wreck the remaining kan (making the central objective worth even more), a couple of orks were left from his squad and passed their moral check, most likely too busy laughing at 5 of my boyz tripping and dying when assaulting through the battlewagon remains.

Turn 4: Simon had a huge opportunity here, but unfortunately only saw 1 of the 2 things he needed to do. The grotzooka kans were too tempting a target sitting in front of his deffrolla, and he rammed 2 of them to death with it, before boarding planking the last in the assault phase. I suspect he had planned before the event to try kill the kan squads in this way, so when the opportunity came up, he was not able to overlook that there was now a much more important target to go after.

Meanwhile his nobs disembarked, and demolished the remaining ork boyz on my right, who at least to their credit, finished off the squad they were with first.

The boyz on the left finished off snikrot, and stumbled back forwards onto their objective by way of consolidation, now worth 2 points.

My Turn 4: The freed up koptas went and demolished his grots, while mutual destruction was finally on the cards between our nobs. When the smoke cleared, in the assault I had blown up his battlewagon that still had boyz in side, killing half a dozen, and left 1 nob and warboss running away as fast as their stumpy gorilla legs could carry them, while I had 1 wounded meganob and a warboss left.

Turn 5: My remaining nob that I needed to get killed was at least close to the action. Simon tried to push him out of the way, so naturally I opted to death or glory, failed to pop his vehicle, and in return was killed to net me some bonus points! We called the game here, as there was no way he could do anything other than contest the middle objective, and I had my backup plan all sewn up. Had we played out my 5th turn though, he only had 14 ork boyz left bunched up, along with the remaining battle wagon, while I had more than enough in range to deal with both these, so a tabling was most likely on the cards.

The game finished as 12-2 to me, though fortunately due to the mission being so weird for the secondary, only 1 or 2 people managed to get the 15. Ultimately I just could never afford to leave those nobs to romp around, whilst losing my own nobs as well, as 12 was all I was ever going to get.

My opponent was a great sport, and I hope I get to play him again in the future, nice guy - and I always admire when people go to the effort of making their Killer Kans glow with LED lights!

Game 2:

Mission: Annihilation*

Secondary Mission: Have more units in their deployment zone than they have in yours

Deployment: Dawn of War

Opponent: Chris Ward (Mech Guard)

*Modified Killpoints, HQ worth 2, things that move more than 6 worth 3.

Chris had:

Command Squad - positive and negative reserve modifiers, flamers

Sly Marbo

Psyker Battle Squad - Chimera

3 Ratlings

30 man Blob Squad - commissar

Platoon Command Squad

2 Special weapon squads

Demo Melta Vets in chimera (these go in a vendetta and give their chimera to a special weapon squad)

Demo Melta Vets in chimera (these go in a vendetta and give their chimera to a special weapon squad)

Vendetta

Vendetta

Hellhound

Manticore

Manticore

2 Hydra Flak Tanks

Chris won the roll for first turn, and set up the 30 man blob in a building to hunker down and protect tanks that would end up coming in behind it. I set up 2 30 man squads on the table, well spread out to minimise the impact of manticores... oh how I hate manticores. I outflanked my koptas, hoping that his -1 to my reserves would keep them out of the game until much later, protecting their 3 kill points.

Turn 1: Chris drove his tanks on entirely on his right hand side. An outstanding night fight roll meant that one of his vehicles got to light up a boyz squad after 3 or 4 tries, which meant the manticores could now unleash on them. A 3 was rolled for the missiles both times, and 6 pie plates killed a handful of boyz, thankfully I had spread so much and had half in area terrain! His 30 man squad also opened up on them and killed a small handful, also rolling reasonably well for their night fight.

My Turn 1: Everything else moved on, pushing up across from his lines. Both lots of kans ran, as did both lots of boyz. I was confident that the remains of the shot up boyz squad would hold up one more turn, which would buy the other squad the time he needed. The lootas hopped into a bit of terrain, and we braced for next turn. The remaining boyz killed 2 ratlings, but didn't manage to secure the squad for a KP.

Turn 2: This involved little movement from Chris. The hellhound moved up 6 to shoot both guns at the as yet untouched boyz squad on my right. Neither vendetta came in, but sly showed up next to the lootas, throwing his handbag and killing nothing in the process.

The manticores fired up again - getting another 6 missiles, which in turn blew up the battlewagon and the trukk. Everything else shot at my boyz squad, while the PSB got ready to moral-screw them. I got reasonably lucky with cover saves, and they held out at 11 models, just barely staying fearless. The trukkboyz on the other hand failed their moral check, and were below half so were goneburger.

My turn 2: both the grots and the deffkoptas showed up needing a 5. The koptas initially rolled the right side to cause havoc in his back lines, but I had to reroll it and instead came on the other side, so elected to kill sly with them. Sly was promptly killed for no losses, and they hunkered down in cover with their consolidation. The boyz squad on my right surged forward and killed the hellhound, and were now in a good position to threaten more units. The lootas stopped the PSB chimera from shooting. The meganobs just moved and ran forward ready to threaten next round.

Turn 3: Chris knew he had to clean out the meganobs this turn. He pushed the PSB chimera to one side and hopped them out so they could weaken resolve, then unleashed both manticores on them, getting another 6 missiles, but thankfully due to my spreading out and some less than great scattering, no meganobs died. The remaining orks from my 30man mob earlier were removed from the game, and 2 kans were also dropped.

Both vendettas came on, but instead of hitting meganobs with lascannons and order cover busting meltas, he instead brought them on the other side of the table to try deal to the deffkoptas, who miraculously survived, passing their moral check with 2 koptas intact.

My turn 3: This was the big crunch turn for me. The meganobs went and assaulted the 30 man squad, with average rolling I should be safe for one turn, finish in his phase and be able to move on. A big fleet and assault got them into the hydras as well luckily, sending them packing.

The mostly intact boyz squad on my right went and hit the PSB chimera, with just the tail enders clipping the PSB squad themselves, hoping to get stuck in for a turn. The deffkoptas jumped back behind a vendetta, and shot it in the rear but only blew off a weapon. In their assault, one hit the vendetta, but the other one tagged the veterans net to them, again hoping to stay protected for a crucial turn. Meanwhile the llootas immobilised and blew the gun off the other vendetta, while the grots got into cover.

In the assault, the meganobs rolled well above the curve and wiped them out to a man. The boyz squad performed well, immobilizing and shaking the chimera while drawing combat with the PSB squad. The deffkoptas won the combat by 2 but the veterans held.

Turn 4: Chris now didn't have much he could do, what was left unleashed on the meganobs, but with them crawling around in cover and me allocating melta hits to the warboss, not a lot of results came up. A kan squad was finished off, and that was about it. The PSB squad was wiped out and their chimera wrecked, while the deff koptas won the combat by 3, breaking and chasing down the veteran squad. We called it during my T4, after working out that I was so far ahead on kill points, and he couldn't touch the 2 scoring units I had in his deployment zone, while he could only get 1 into mine and I still had a chance at wiping even them out.

The final result wound up being 15-0, and the altered kill points didn't wind up being relevant, as he had only killed 5 of my units, while if we played out the turn he would be close to being tabled.

I was happy with my performance over the game, the deffkoptas rolled way above what they should have overall to secure the secondary for me, while the meganobs never failed a 2+ save during the game, of which I probably had to make more than 20. Outside of that though, rolling was pretty average to well below average, so I didn't feel like I had nicked the game too badly.

I'd love to hear any comments or answer any questions, and in the next couple of days will add rounds 3&4, then 5&6 with a wrap up.

- Charlie (St Clair, not Sheen, as seen by the lack of reference to tiger blood).