as you know the 5th annual New Zealand masters tournament was held over the weekend, and was brought to you by the impeccable logistical skills of Pete Dunn, the laid back TO James Milner, and the professional kibitzer Hagen Kerr, who was there to do god knows what.
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| I like you so much more if you get this reference. |
This year we had 7 of the top 10 ranked people in the country in attendance, but only an 8 person field. This actually worked out fantastically, with an adjustment to the schedule it was lined up to be a 7 round, round robin event so that you played every other participant. This was unique and changed the dynamic of the weekend dramatically. It was great knowing you weren't going to dodge anyone in the room.
I've done a quick write up of all 7 of my games while it's fresh, and will tidy it up and post a couple of rounds each day over the week.
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| Lets not discuss the actual probability of some of the good and bad shenanigans that take place over the weekend.... |
My list was as follows:
Necron Overlord (Mindshackle Scarabs, Warscythe, Sempiternal Weave, Command Barge)
1 Solarpulse Cryptek
5 Warriors, Nightscythe
5 Warriors, Nightscythe
5 Warriors,
5 Wraiths, 2 Whip coils
5 Wraiths 1 Whip coil, 1 Particle Caster
5 Wraiths, 1 Whip coil
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Right so, here we go!
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| Its the important questions in life when it comes to Tzeentch Daemons... |
Round 1: Haydn Korach
Mission: The Scouring
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Haydns list was Fateweaver, Blue Scribes, 9 flamers, 5 flamers, 5 flamers, 9 screamers, 9 screamers, 5 plague bearers, 5 plague bearers.
I won the roll for first turn, and with Haydns army, objectives were going to be irrelevant, it was all going to come down to who did more damage in the first 2-3 turns, so elected to take it.
T1 – Me: I spread somewhat, so that I had a wide range of areas to respond to, but also kept things close enough that where ever he dropped, I could use a combined arms approach to give him a bad time.
T1 – Haydn: He got his preferred wave; Fateweaver, 9man flamer unit, 5man flamer unit with blue scribes, and 1 unit of screamers. Fortunately for me, with scatters and LOS, my only losses on the drop were 4 warriors and the cryptek, with a couple getting back up.
T2 – Me: Both flyers came in, and eyed up fatty-fateweaver, hoping to drop him to the ground. Meanwhile all 3 wraiths squads got within charge range of the screamers, hoping to strip them out rather than get bogged down in a protracted combat. Each flyer promptly did 1 wound each to fateweaver, the second one dropping him, and then a tesla barge killed him. No rerolls on armour saves from this point out was a huge, huge boon.
The rest of the shooting did a little whittling of flamers and screamers, before 2 of the wraith squads made it into the screamer unit remnants, totally obliterating it for almost no losses.
T2 – Haydn: The screamer unit , the flamer unit, and one plague bearer unit all fail their reserve rolls, leaving just a plague bearer squad hitting the ground. Haydns larger flamer unit kills 3 wraiths with shooting, and assault the remaining 2, while the other squad kills one wraith and charges them to tie them up.
T3 – Me: The plague bearer squad is stripped down to 1 model left, which the lord on chariot totally fails to kill. I counter charge the fresh wraith squad, and a squad of warriors into the larger flamer squad, and kill all but 1. The other combat goes well also, with just the blue scribes and 1 flamer left.
T3 – Haydn: The screamers and other plague bearer squad arrive, fairly far away from the action. All 3 wraith squads finish off the flamers they were in combat with, and in total the squad sizes now sit at 2, 5 and 4 – so fairly minimal losses, and big consolidates for all 3 help close the gap to the other unit of screamers. The overlord still fails to kill a single plague bearer.
T4 – Me: Everything shoots at the screamers, killing 5 of them, and killing 3 plague bearers with tesla bounces. The wraith squads need a 9 and a 10 to get into assault, so naturally they both make it and finish off the screamers. The lord continues to fail to kill a plague bearer, because he is an idiot.
T4 – Haydn: The flamers come in, the lord finally kills the plague bearer, and we call the game there as I have an aweful lot left on the table ready to pulverize the flamer squad and the 2 remaining plague bearers for a tabling.
Win – 15.
First Blood – 1, Fateweaver.
Warlord – 1, Blue Scribes.
Line Breaker – 1, a squad of wraiths.
Final result, 18-0.
Haydn’s army was a hugely powerful force in this match up. Unfortunately for him I was able to negate most of the strengths of the list. 40mm bases, spread out heavily with 3++ saves hugely negates flamers, while the wraiths again get to minimize the impact of screamers. TL Tesla is great at popping fateweaver so this game was always going to be an uphill struggle for Haydn, but some pretty skewed dice early on in my favor made it a lot less of a contest than it should have been.
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| Rob perhaps misjudged the feel of the event, and showed up with a steak knife to the mother of all gunfights.
Round 2: Robert Power
Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Diagonal
Robs list was a Farseer, 2 squads of dire avengers in wave serpents, 3 individual warwalkers, 3 individual vypers, an allied blood angels super chaplain, 2 ten man BA tactical squads in razorbacks.
Rob won the roll for first turn, and elected to give it to me in order to be able to try clear my small soft scoring units off the relic at the end of the game if they were holding onto it, and was also weary of the fact it was night fight.
T1 – Me: I deployed centrally, and shoveled everything forward. The only thing really in range for my shooting was a 5 man squad, and my whole army shot at it, killing precisely 2 marines… doh!
T1 – Rob: Rob moved everything up to try get as much shooting on wraiths as possible. Unfortunately he pushed this a bit too hard, and overexposed himself. The 2 squads in razorbacks pushed up and basically used fish of fury to be able to rapidfire wraiths while not be able to be assaulted. Some of the shooting had to come from over 24 inches away, through ruins in night fight though, so some 2+ saves helped reduce some of the casualties, and while there were a few wounds split around, my wraith squads were left as 5, 4, and 3.
T2 – Me: This was a big turn for vehicle destruction. Both flyers came in, 1 killed a vyper, 1 killed a warwalker. The lord assaulted the farseers wave serpent and killed it. An annihilation barge blew up a Razorback, the 4 man wraith squad assaulted a warwalker and vyper, ripping the gun off the viper but staying locked with the warwalker. The other annihilation barges wiped out one of the 5 man tactical squads (but didn’t hurt the chaplain), and killed 1 more of the other squad from tesla bounces. The 3 man wraith squad assaulted the 3 tactical marines left from turn 1’s shooting, losing 1 to the stand and shoot response, while the 5 man wraith squad killed the other razorback and the 3rd viper. All up, a heavy tally indeed.
T2 – Rob: Rob counter charged the wraiths still tied up with the warwalker with the chaplain and remaining tactical marines. The last war walker tried to down a flyer but missed, and in an effort to kill the command barge the farseer charged, only to fail his mind shackle test. No hitting the barge for him then. The 2 man wraith squad failed to kill anything, while the 4 man squad killed the warwalker but not any of the marines that charged them, losing one wraith in the process.
T3 – Me: The 5man wraith squad went to bail out the now 3man squad. The Overlord dealt to the farseer and his squad, the warwalker was polished off, the remaining wave serpent had a gun shot off, the remaining viper was shot down, and the 2 man wraith squad finished off the marines. In the other wraith combat, all marines were killed and the chaplain wounded.
T3 – Rob: Very little left for Rob at this stage. The wave serpent tried to make a break for it for some end game linebreaker. In an effort to kill some wraiths, the last 5 tactical marines in his back corner of the table only managed to kill their plasma cannoner, and the chaplain was finished off.
T4 – Me: a squad of warriors goes and hugs the relic. The remaining marines are jumped on by wraiths, the wave serpent is shot down and the contents killed.
Win – 15.
First Blood – 1, warwalker
Warlord – 1, Farseer
Line Breaker – 1, a squad of wraiths.
Final result, 18-0.
A very hard game for Rob, he had what I felt was the weakest list there, to the extent where going into the event I did not feel he could be competitive in any way shape or form. Unfortunately for Rob I feel a total rethink of the list, rather than tweaks and minor adjustments would be required. If he was keen on utilizing the existing models as much as possible, I would strongly consider swapping those allies from BA to regular marines, turning that chaplain into a librarian spitting out a null zone to help against the necrons and daemons he will begin to run into more and more. Curious to hear other peoples thoughts on the matter though!
Rounds 3 and 4 to come tomorrow!
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And I said hey, what's going on!? :)
ReplyDeleteWhile I got brutally thumped, I can't wait to be in a battle report:)[All box's ticked or a first year in tourney's!]
ReplyDeleteDamn fine weekend with many lessons learnt and I second the sentiment that the full round robin was excellent.
Not even going to try and argue that the list needs some serious reworking lol. I couldn't find any 1500pt list I was happy with and ended up just going with a S6 spam list which I think mostly was let down by its lack of durability. I always try and build relatively rounded lists and ran into 4 1500pt rock armies. I probably should have beaten Dan round 1 (given the mission and deployment type) but somehow didn't realise that I could kite him almost completely until turn 2 so lost some stuff I shouldn't have early on. Also would have backed myself against Marks list in anything but KPs.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Librarians in an Eldar list is that they get effected by Warding (which you need to counter Nids), so really don't offer that much (hence why I took the Chaplain rather than a BA Libby who is cheaper). You can reserve the Seer to try and avoid it, but you need Null Zone turns 2-4 so it doesn't really help because he will show up by then. I will certainly be playing around with different allies though, I mostly went with BA for the fast Razors, but given how overpriced the Serpents are I'm not sure if they will continue to fit in/be needed with what will probably be a more infantry based army. Other possible candidates I want to try are Grey Knights (2 x 10 Strikes gives me a way to handle Demons since reserving the Seer actually works in that case) and Deathwing (durable troops and S8 does ok against Wraiths).
Ew, had forgotten you would be effected by your own warding. That sucks.
ReplyDelete