Labyrinth Comics and Games Saturday Tourament

The lab had a little event this weekend that I got to go to. I ran a Shrike plus scouts list detailed here. Basic idea is just try try to get close and assault fast with fleet scouts with support from assault marines and bikes. Even though this was sort of an odd list I managed through mainly luck on opponents and always winning turn choice to get second place in the battles with my 2-0-1 record. My list was not to heavy but played to slow to get sportsmanship and nothing was painted so no possible prize for me there. The top battle prize went to Daemons for a 3-0-0 record.

First Game: Chaos Space Marines

Spearhead with 3 objectives plus random meteor strikes. This list is tough for me since chaos marines are better in assault than normal marines. I won first turn and just setup my speeders and assault marines then after he set up most of his army in his corner I boxed him in with my infiltrators then scout moved to 12. I immobilized both of his transports and was assaulting during the first turn. The game ran really slow as the scouts and chaos marines worked on each other in combat. His heavy hitting lord and chaos terminators just got a deepstrike mishap so got placed away from the action. The game only made 2 turns in the time with me holding 2 and contesting 1 but we agreed it was a draw since I had started pretty much holding 2 and pretty close to the third. Telion earned his points back with a Bullet to the head of a Aspiring Sorcerer in a 1K Sons squad.

Second Game: New Imperial Guard

Dawn of War with Annihilation with sandstorms that occasional caused difficult terrain and night fighting. List had a ton of different things including 3 or so of the unique upgrade characters. Since this was dawn of war and the opponent did not have a fleet advisor I gave him first turn and held everything but the snipers for outflanking/deepstriking. After a long discussion of how platoons and units work in Dawn of War he deployed some combined platoons and then moved most of his forces on in turn 1. I moved on my assault marines behind a building to hide them and fast moved the landspeeders up.

He then destroyed my speeders and he put some fire on my snipers and on my assault marines from Marbo's demo pack and some deepstriking storm troops. He failed to force either to fall back so the snipers killed Marbo while the assault marines drop the stormtroopers to one lone brave member who fought on. Deepstrike the assault termis right in front of his line while I moved flankers in on his flankers to one side. His next turn decided the game where he put 2/3 of his fire power into trying to kill 5 assault terminators. We are talking about a decked out russ, 5 plasmacannon shot russ, bassilisk, 4 different squads. I think he might have killed 1. We were running short on time and I was already up kill points before my half of the turn with several guard units in assault range for multi assault by the termis and others by my scouts. My heavy hitting bike squad with Shrike also had not arrived so he called the game for me.

Third Game: Space Marines

While my first 2 games were against young players learning their armies this one was against an old pro. He had a Master of the Forge with 3 Drop Podded Dreads(1 Ven, 2 Iron Clad) supported by crusader with thunderhammer termis, 2 drop pods of tac squads, and a TL LC+ML Dread. The mission was a combined annhilation with 3 objectives worth 1 KP (1 random one was worth 2). I gave him first turn and reserved absolutely everything. He dropped in and secured the objectives and moved up his raider. I came in and popped the raider with my bikers then assaulted the termis(not my best good idea). The termi killed off my bikers over a two rounds of combat and caused Shrike to break and run. My Termis came in but did not get the job done and were killed off by the combined might of a dread and a tac squad. My assault squad got bogged down with an Ironclad. My assault scouts did better killing a tac squad and 2 pods and managed to stay alive with 3 in each squad including the fist. Shrike rallied and went back an killed the master of the forge. At the end of the 4th or 5th turn time was up and I was up 5-2 having killed 3 pods, 1 tac squad, and a landraider he had killed my assault termis and bikers. Victory points he was way up but the game was kill points so the victory was mine. If the game was going to go on he probably would have picked up 2 more kill points but I also would have probably got 2 more also.

Labyrinth Comics and Games Tournament

Just finished playing in a tournament at the lab near downtown Ann Arbor. I used my Mech Pedro list and managed with a little last second luck to get a 1-1-1 in my three games. The winner of the tournament brought an Ork Horde army with like 100 boys and 30 lootas. I did not play him but I think that the tight time limit for these type of things make this army better than it should be. If you can only get through 3 turns in 2 hours it is nearly impossible to make a dent in that type of army. It also appeared that peoples list were set up for more anti armor than anti horde. None of my opponents had any problems destroying my vindi and predator before they could do much.

My major lesson learned is never use Pedro's orbital bombardment out of the Rhino of vanguards as their first turn. The turn lost moving pretty much holds the unit back to far to get stuck in when their Rhino gets shot out from under them. It might be a good tactic to try if the Rhino gets immobilized and you try to get it to self repair.

Game 1: Mech Eldar
Mission was 5 loot counters with Spearhead deployment. Mech Eldar with 2 serpents and 2 falcons, small dire avenger squads, scorpions, banshees and warp spiders. This was probably the best board for me that I played on all night. Since Marines lack skimmer tanks the type of terrain is important. On this board the terrain was several large pieces so their was still room to move the tanks without tons of terrain tests. The other boards had many small pieces which really limited the tank movement.

I had first turn so I lined up the my tanks to try to move forward with my sniper scouts sitting on an objective near the center of the table. He left his men out of their transport afraid of them exploding before they moved. He had forgotten that in 5th you cannot move flat out if someone embarks that turn.

He stole the initiative from me and them started to work over my tanks. He had the advantage most of the game but a lucky shot from my scout missile destroyed a waveserpent with dire avengers far from any objectives. I got lucky and got few members of a tac squad onto an objective in his zone and was able to contest most of the others getting the win. If he had played the mission a little more and not just focusing on killing my units he probably would have won.

Game 2 Tau
This mission was Kill points and pitched battle deployment. Pretty balanced Tau list with excellent range of different units. I again had first turn but made a horrible mistake in deployment. I tried to keep my army together and avoid the big impassible base in the center of the board so I set up in one corner. He responded by pretty much setting up in the other so I ended up doubling the distance I needed to get to him. I was already in a hole since I have a lot of kill points to give with the tanks. He then stole the initiative from me and proceeded to wipe the floor with me. His 2 broadsides made quick work of my tanks while his ion cannon trashed the transports. I think the final result was like 6 to 1 with all my tanks and transports dead and my scouts dead with me only managing to eliminate a small crisis team. I have no doubt that he still would have won if I had not messed up deployment but it might have actually been a contest.

Game 3: Thousand Sons
Capture and Control with Dawn of War deployment. Enemy list was tooled up daemon prince, 2 rhino mounted 1K sons squads, 10 man termi squad, 2 oblits, Defiler. He had first turn and started both Rhinos and Daemon prince on the board. I started scouts on my objective and tac squad in rhino hiding. He then proceeded to methodically move up the board essentially abandoning his objective to destroy me. 1 Oblit immoblized my predator while the other killed my vindi then proceeded to assault my scouts. The daemon princed killed my tac squad's Rhino but the squad was able to get him back the next turn before being AP 3 boltered to death. The sternguard moved up one flank but ended up running into the terminators and retreated back. As turn 5 started, he was moving toward my objective while running a 1k unit back onto his after their rhino got destroyed. I had to use my vanguard to kill his oblit still locked in combat with my scouts so it would not contest my objective.

I ended up with a litte area around my objective clear at the end of turn 5. I had 4 scouts surrounding it with a rhino shielding them from fire from the termis and defiler just off screen. I also had 2 scoring Sternguard just in the building covered by the rhino and the vanguard surrounding the objective on the open side. My other suriving rhino was trying to block the path of the other 1K sons. The game ended at this point with me holding my objective at least at the moment clearly and him just barely making 3 inches to his objectives base. I think this is something everyone always needs to remember that all objectives need to be the same size either, 25 mm base or a 40 mm base or a point location. This is the second time where differences in objectives influenced a game. Had the game gone onto a the 6th turn he had a good chance of getting something to my objective with some good fleet and terrain rolls and wiping me out on a 7th turn.

Overall it was a good time but I am just not that good with tanks. I think I might try a Shrike based list next or maybe actually work on my nids so I could actually try them.

The Fight For Food

There was a great little tournament here in Ann Arbor last weekend hosted at Get Your Game On. It was more of a hobby/fair play tournament than a win at all costs. The idea was a canned food drive for a local charity, The Food Gatherers. Entering the event cost 5 cans and up to 4 rerolls could be used or forced per game with additional cans of food. The games used the GW Hall of Heroes Scenarios.

The top prize was for most cans donated but since everyone maxed out their rerolls this was decided by sportsmanship score. Next was the sportsmanship prize which went to the runner up sportsman. The next prize was painting and the final was battle points. The attendance was lower than hoped due to a persistent snow fall the night before and during the day but a good time was had by all who made it.
A significant amount of food was brought even though the attendance was not maxed out and filled a large box such that the box would collapse if lifted. If someone does something like this in the future it might be interesting to use the food as the terrain while encouraging people to bring cans, boxes, and bagged foods for variety.

I did not win anything but still had a good time. My army is not painted so I was out there. I am still working on the tactics and getting vehicles for my mech marines so I went 1-1-1 in the games. I am also not that great of a sportsman since I always like to be right and got into a argument about the new multiple assaulter rules twice where people are still claiming that you are not allowed to fight new assaulters even if you are in base to base contact with them. I was the new assaulter so I was not even trying to get the rule used properly for an advantage.



Here was my army from the event. I am trying to track down the pictures of the participants and will follow up with a few battle reports from the event.