MasterCraft Gaming

GT Victories for the Eldar

Hey all Son of Adam here again. I have been off the blogging scene for a while and, with some technical errors and time requirements have not produced any visual content for you all. However, my hobby has continued on and, at the request of a fellow hobbyist, I have decided to update you on some of the tournament success that I have been able to achieve during my absence from the virtual world.

I have participated in several tournaments during this time, made a few guest appearances on 11^th company podcasts, and started a new army. However, I will only discuss two GTs that I have attended in this post.

The first of which was the Battle for Salvation GT up in New York. This was a 60 some person tournament, for six rounds, over the course of two days. I brought a similar Eldar/Dark Eldar list as I brought to NOVA. It had:

My invisi-council

2 squads of 3 guardian jetbikes

2 Squads of rangers

Swooping Hawks

Aegis defense line with a quad-gun

the duke and

20 warriors

I had a great time at this event, with all thanks to the Battle for Salvation gaming club for putting it on. For the first round I played against a fella named James, who has a blog which can be found here. James was running a mix between horde orks, battlewagons, and dakka jets. James was a great sport and a fun guy to play against. I tried to pull off some Eldar shenanigans and the dice weren’t with me. Eventually boyz overwhelmed my council and I was left with my weak troops, and the dark eldar. I was able to maintain points and stay alive long enough to make it a very close game. In the end I was able to win on KP’s while almost being tabled.

The second round was against a great player, and accomplished GT winner, Nick N. (I don’t know how to spell his last name and would like not to butcher it here in any attempt to recreate it). Nick’s army was a very sound Tyranid list with a lot of monstrous creatures and lots of guants. He was also running several squads of zoanthropes for psychic powers. My advantage was in the ever humble runes of warding. After hurting many of his models from perils Nick ended up giving up on the effort to cast powers and played the army straight. After the council lost combat one round, it broke. This ended up in the end giving me the win as I was able to regroup in my turn and get a round of shooting off that crippled his army. In the end Nick played a great game but I was able to get the win.

The third round was against a very similar Tyranid army as played by the NOVA commander himself, Mike Brandt. In this mission I gave Mike first turn and after he deployed laterally, I refuse flank deployed and was able to isolate half of his army simply with range. I used my full force on a limited amount of his, and I was in the end just able to get to some objectives to claim the victory. Mike was very sporting about it, and had a very nicely painted and presented army. As a sign of good sportsmanship he gave me a KR Multi-case dice tray (which I still use, thanks by the way).

The fourth round was against a nice fella from CT (my apologies, it has been quite a while and I have forgotten his name). The mission was objectives and he was playing my armies hard counter, old demons. I bundled up in the corner of the table and tried to castle in such a way as to deny as much of the incoming damage as I could. However, his forces proved too strong. Too much damage was done by his alpha strike for me to deal out enough to stay alive. After some fighting I lost the castle. However, the council was able to manipulate the table enough to get some positioning, and I was able to tie on KPs, tie on table quarters, and then win by a small margin on objectives.

The fifth match was against a Necron/ Grey Knight list, as piloted by Eric Hoeger. Eric and I have met a few times now at the tournament scene and every match has been a challenge. We have grown to respect and appreciate each other’s ability. In this match I was able to keep mobility on Eric and win on table quarters. He deep struck a full squad of wraiths in front of my Warriors squad, and I was able to kill enough of them to deny them any effect in the game, and his other full squad of wraith scattered and misshaped to their deaths. With the extra weight of my army I was able to defensively lean on Eric and pull out the win.

The sixth and final match was on table one against Team America’s own, Andrew Gonyo. He was running a GK/Guard mix, and a very shooty one at that. Andrew went first and shot 6 or so pysbolt razorbacks into my council before I could get fortune up and dropped 4 or so. In my turn I was able to put a bunch of rending wounds on his dreadknight, which he managed not to take any wounds from. At that point the game was near its end. Andrew was able to take the extra weight he had and lean on me for the rest of the game. I tried some risky maneuvers and was able to, with Eldar shenanigans, cut down his blob squad and contest a bunch of objectives. But, in the end, sound play and some good fortune won the day for Andrew.

I was able to win second to one at this GT and won a very fancy cup trophy.

BFS Trohphy

The second GT that I want to more quickly review is the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre GT. This GT had 42 players and ran 5 rounds over the course of two days. This was a very fun event, with free food all day, and some great looking trophies.

I was taking a new Eldar/IG army, which had an IG blob with two Demolishers to compliment my Eldar force. The first game I played was against a fella named Tim with Sisters and Palladins. He shot down a bunch of my council, which caused me to retreat. Fortunately I was able to wipe his paladins with my demolishers and keep my distance from his guns in order to get more KP’s and win the match.

The second match was against a nice Beltway Gamer name Duncan. He was sporting a very shooty Space Wolves army. In this match I was able to tie up or kill all of his scoring units with the council and kept the objectives open for my mobile scoring units in order to get the win.

The third match was against an Ork/IG army general led by a fella name Paul. In this match I used a sort of refuse flank deployment in order to bait Paul towards my council long enough to fly them away to the other side of the table. With this I was able to apply all of my force on half of his in order to win on victory points.

The forth match was against the same James that I play first round at BFS. He was running a fast assault Chaos list with Ork allies. In this match I was able to pull off more Eldar shenanigans to get a tag-team combat and kill his spawn squad with typhus. I was then able to lean on him with the extra weight to win the objective.

The last match was a rematch of the same event the year before, and it was against none other than my rival, Eric Hoeger (Yes the same guy as in the semi-finals of BFS). Eric was running a similar list to James, but it was pure Chaos. This match was the relic, and Eric grabbed it first as he had first turn. I shot his unit down, but couldn’t grab the relic. He then charged my council with nearly his entire army. He was also able to pick up the relic with some plague marines and charge in as well. For the next 5 turns or so, I sent all of my spare precision strikes into the one guy holding the relic. Eventually he died and dropped it. The game ended with a tie on the primary, while I won on the secondary.

That gave me first place at this GT and a really fancy trophy.

Thanks for reading guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you have any comments, or anything that you would like to hear some strategy about post below. If I have the time I will respond, or create a post to respond to your questions.

-Peace

Posted in Battle Reports, Eldar, Events

4 Comments

Tags: 2K, 40k, batrep, Battle Report, eldar, GT, Saim Hann, stomping grounds, tournament, Warhammer

Quick Tip: Tag-Team to Win Combat

Sep 21

Posted by Son of Adam

Hey all Son of Adam here with a quick tip about tipping the favor of combat. This technique is a very particular one, but it can be shaped to good effect against most non-fearless armies; it’s called the tag-team. Please keep in mind that this technique cannot be used in every circumstance, but when it can be used, it can be the shift in power during a game.

Once in the last round of a tournament, I was facing a horde ork army with a full sized nob biker unit. There was nothing in my army that could have faced that unit head on and my opponent knew it. He stretched the squad out across the board so that no matter where I went in my turn he would be close enough to engage me. I was stuck in a hard place and had to employ the tag-team.

I happened to get the rule book power terrify (it relieves a unit of the fearless special rule) and I used it on his nob bikers (keep in mind this tactic can only be used on non-fearless units). I moved up my combat unit and did not shoot in order to keep the formations that he had put out in place. Then I multi-assaulted his strung out nobs squad (big scary unit) and tag-teamed his boys squad (an easily killable unit). I used my movement in such a way to make sure that nearly all of the combat squad could only get in on the boys squad and I dumped nearly all of my attacks into it. During his reaction most of his nob squad was too far away to fight, and most of the boys were dead.

For combat resolution I had killed enough of the boys that his biker squad was taking its leadership test on a two. Even with the re-roll they failed, and since the boys were still big enough to be fearless I couldn’t pursue them. The Nobs with both warbosses rolled their three dice and fled off the table.

That is the tag-team. In these pictures you can see how the eldar jetbikes are facing off against a paladin squad. During their movement they position themselves in a place where they can declare the convenient rhino as their primary target and the paladins as the secondary.

After they charge they dump all of their attacks into the rhino and only one of the warlocks hits the paladins. Since in sixth edition all damages against a tank count towards combat resolution the paladins end up loosing combat by enough to make them test on double ones.

They fail their leadership and if the bikes roll low enough to catch them, then the paladins will break and run off the table.

This is very situational, and it’s not a guarantee, but if you find the opportunity, try it. You can help push favor of combat towards your units if you can find a way to push the combat resolution to 9+ on your side. Good luck all.

Posted in Game Strategy, Gameplay, Micro

10 Comments

Tags: 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, gameplay, micro, Strategy, tactics, Warhammer

Tournament Review: Alternate Universe 1750 9.12

Sep 17

Posted by Son of Adam

Hey all Son of Adam here again with another tournament review. This weekend I played in a tournament, and with some suggestions from comments and friends of mine I came up with the worst list from my painted models. It was time to troll.

The tournament this weekend was at Alternate Universe in Blue Bell PA. This was their 1750 anniversary tournament and was tons of fun. The crew there always has a good time and is always made up of very friendly players.

Without further ado here is my troll list:

HQ: Crisis Commander Shas’O with irodium armor, vectored retro-thrusters, flamer, fusion blaster, hw tl, hw mt, and stimulant injectors.

Elites: 3 Stealth Suits with 1 leader and 1 fusion gun

Elites: 3 Crisis suits with 1 Shas’vre 2 plasma, 1 melta, 3 flamers, 2 drones

Troops: 6 Fire warriors in a devilfish w/sensor spines, d pod, flechette dis

Troops: 10 kroot

FA: 4 Pathfinders with a devilfish w/sensor spines, d pod, flechette dis

HS: 3 sniper drone teams

Fort: Aegis

HQ: Lord Commissar with a power sword (no fist, or axe) in a chimera

Elites: 3 Ogryns in a chimera

Troops: Penal Legion Squad

FA: Armored Sentinel with a Plasma Cannon

–Allows time for laughter–

I’m not trying to say that anything in here is inherently unplayable, but I do want to point out that these were the worst models that I had painted for these two forces. Some of these are pretty funny and are very rarely used in the competitive scene. By suggestion I took tau/guard with as many lightly armored transports as possible because of how bad they got. I added in a squad of ogryns, and a penal legion squad as they are often the least used troops choice in the IG codex. I made sure that my Lord Commissar had no weapons of relative use, and was in his own dedicated transport. All in all I think that the best thing in the army was the aegis line, and I wouldn’t have taken it if I found my ethereal in time.

So for the first match I played against a very balanced Space Marine army with 3 tac squads, a scout squad, a chapter master, a chaplain, 10 man terminator squad, a whirlwind, and a large dev squad. The mission was a modified VP mission, wherein there was a neutral model that counted as a flying MC that moved in a random direction each turn and was worth 4 VPs. My opponent rolled for the random direction on the first turn and sent the bird into my quarter. After that I spent two full turns shooting it down.

He then deep struck his termies w/Chaplain in front of my lines and I shot down half of them while bubble wrapping everything with the kroot for the counter charge. In his turn the scouts outflanked and his termies ran through the kroot. I finished off the rest of the termies and shot down the rest of the scouts. At that my opponent forfeits. I had a win with a bunch of luck. If my opponent had rolled for the bird to fly into his quarter it would have been much different.

In the second game I played against my friend TJ’s Grey Knights. He was running a grand master with two 10 man termi squads, one 10 man strike squad, a storm raven, and an aegis with a quad-gun. Our mission was 6 objectives with the Big Guns never tire rule. We started off in Dawn of War deployment and he won the first turn. He set up by combat-squading the strikes to hold two different objectives, putting one 10 man in the middle of the field and combat-squading the other, placing half of it in the raven. On my side I split castled. Some of my stuff went on my far left flank and some on the far right with everything else in reserve and the Crisis suits deep striking.

I shot down his quad-gun, and put some wounds on both strike squads and one of the termie squads. He spent his first few turns moving up and running. The suits deep struck next to the strikes in the aegis and flame/plasma’d them all down with the grand master. (Allocating the wound pool is great for the shooter now). The rest of my left flank shot down his other strike squad.

In TJ’s next turn the raven came on and put some pain on the suits and his center 10 man backtracked and went after them as well. The other five man moved forward to get to a middle objective. In my turn the kroot outflanked onto the now vacant objective on my left side and the stealth suits on my right to support the crisis suits. I dropped the 5 man termie squad and moved into an advantageous position with the suits. TJ brought the raven down and charged my suits and wiped them. Then in my turn I brought the ogryns forward and all of my transports marched together across the field. In the last turn of the game I tank shocked his termie squad out of position and then charged them with the two ogryns I had left. Because he was out of position from the tank shock, I was able to charge one hammer-termie and kill him in combat, while the rest of the squad couldn’t get back in and won (with two ogryns against a 10 man GK termie squad) simply because of the tank shock placement. The game ended and I had more objectives than TJ did to get the win. That put me at 2-0 and on the top table for the last round.

In game three I played Frank with his Demons/IG list (for those of you who remember, I played against Frank at the Stomping Grounds tournament in the last round as well. This was the modified list that he brought with him to NOVA). He had a blob squad, a command squad, three valks with two vets and a platoon command in them, a large squad of screamers, 3 man flamers, and two big flying MCs. Our mission was three objectives with one in each zone and the third in the neutral zone with a vanguard deployment. Frank castled with his guard and I castled on the exact opposite side. Frank got first turn and got his preferred wave. He dropped both MCs in my front line with the screamers and the rest of his army was out of range for everything else. I brought all of my guns to bear and pulled one MC out of the sky, but couldn’t kill him. In his turn one of the MCs charged the ogryns and the other flew forward to get position. His flamers came down and finished off my pathfinders. In combat the ogryns stuck it out.

For my turn the suits deep-struck behind his guard lines, but even with the re-roll they mis-hap’d and Frank placed them near the screamers. I was able to shoot down the other MC and stuck it out in combat again. On his side the screamers jumped over to the middle objective and his flamers blew up a d-fish. In combat his mc had one wound left and I had one wound left on two different ogryns. On my side I brought the kroot and the stealth up on the middle objective (I had cleverly placed it in the back corner near my side to limit his mobility and utilize my own). The penal legion charged into the MC and the rest of the army shot down the screamers and flamers. In combat I finished off the MC and he killed off all but one wound of one ogryn. His valks came in and shot down all but the commander suit with their las. For the final turn my gun drones split off. I was able to shoot down two different valks and charge the remains with drones to kill them off (super-drones they are always under-rated). Then the stealth suits jumped up and charged the remaining valk, which had gone into hover mode for the maneuverability in order to put himself into position for the objective. However, the suits were able to immobilize it. The game ended and I was able to hold two objectives to his one in order to win the game.

All in all I ended up with three wins, with an ok painted trolling army, and managed to pull out best sportsman (which they passed on being that I won best overall). There was some luck involved, particularly in the first game with the random direction of the bird, but I feel like solid play was what allowed me to win out over the rest. My opponents were great guys and we all had some fun with these matches.

My thanks to the guys at Alternate Universe and especially to Jack, who has been putting on these tournaments for four years now. Well done all.

Posted in Armies, Battle Reports, Events, Tau

6 Comments

Tags: 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, aegis, allies, batrep, Battle Report, demons, Grey Knights, IG, Imperial Guard, space marines, Storm Raven, tau, tournament, Warhammer

Help Son of Adam Troll

Hey guys its Son of Adam again. I’m sorry that it has been a bit quite recently, but I have been taking a break from 40k for the week after NOVA. We should start up again soon.

This is just a quick post to get some feedback. I am attending a tournament tomorrow and I would like to take a bad list. I want to troll with a bad list and see if I can win anything with it. So, with that said, I would like ideas on what to take.

The tournament is 1750 and I have Guard, Tau, Eldar, Grey Knights, and Dark eldar allies. I am leaning towards tau. What should I take? (Keep in mind I can only run what I have and it has to be painted, so if you suggest something I don’t have I can’t use it, sorry). I will try to run a bad list and see how how many games I have to play before I get a win. Sound fun? Have at fellas.

Posted on September 14, 2012 | Aside

Tournament Review: NOVA 40k GT 9.12 Part 2

Sep 7

Posted by Son of Adam

Hey guys Son of Adam back again with Part 2 of the Nova review. If you didn’t catch the first part of this you can find it here. Still trying to get this sickness thing down, and between that and a ton of technical issues the latest battle report is going to be a little bit off. But that is another issue. On to the review.

After the first four games we were all thrown into different brackets based on our overall competitive rating (battle points) and our record. The two games I won were won fairly handedly, and the two I lost were very marginal losses with a lot of points on my side. This placed me in the lowest 3/1 bracket; bracket four. After bracketed, if you won the first two then you made it into the finals for your bracket, and after that it was single elimination for the semi-finals and finals.

For my round 5 I played against a Daemon player. He was a very friendly fella and his army was very nicely painted. His list was generally the following:

HQ: Bloodthirster with wings

HQ: Fateweaver

Elites: 6 Fiends

Elites: 3 Flamers

Troops: 5 pink horrors

Troops: 5 Nurglings

FA: 6 Screamers

Fort: Bastion with Quad-gun

HQ: Slaanesh Daemon Prince with wings

Troops: 5 Plague Marines

Troops: 5 Thousand Sons

HS: 3 Oblits

Our mission was P: Objectives, S: Quarters, T: KPs with a vanguard deployment. I won the first turn and gave it to him. He deployed the bastion near his objective and stashed both CSM squads in it. The oblits were stationed right outside and his prince was nearby. I setup the deldar in the aegis and infiltrated both sniper teams on objectives; one in no mans land and one in my quarter. The council just setup their bubble wrap around the deldar to buffer them from any flamers.

In his first turn we had night fighting and his preferred wave came in. He brought down the thirster, fateweaver, the fiends, and the screamers. The thirster and the prince flew up to fateweaver, and his fiends and screamers tried to get into his bubble. He shot some and didn’t do much with the night fighting. In my turn one, I shot everything at fateweaver, and he took a wound but stayed in the air.

In his turn two the horrors came down on my left objective. He moved all of the flying mc into the sniper team. Fateweaver stayed flying and did some ineffectual shooting. His fiends moved into position against the far snipers, and the screamers flat out behind the deldar. In combat the fiends rolled over the snipers as did the MCs on my near edge. In my turn two I moved the council out into position around the screamers and made sure to make them close enough to the other MCs to get a multi-charge. In shooting I wiped out all but one of the screamers, and couldn’t do a thing to fateweaver. The fiends also got knocked down to three models. In combat I killed the remaining screamer, and didn’t manage to do much damage to the prince and the thirster.

For his round three, Fateweaver flew around and did some more shooting. The fiends came in to charge the Dark Eldar. His nurglings came in and claimed the middle objective. In combat I was able to tank most of the damage on the duke and kill a few fiends as well. The council was fairly useless in combat, no wounds caused and none in return. On my side of the turn, the guardians came in and one went after the horrors and knocked all but one down and the others came in and shot at fateweaver. In combat the council and the MCs slapped each other a little bit, while the Deldar cleaned up what was left of the fiends.

In turn four the oblits moved towards the guardians, and Fateweaver came flew near to the MCs to keep his bubble but fire at the guardians. Most of the guardians went down, and my farseer passed his T-test from Boon. In combat I ended up killing off one of the MCs. The guardians cleaned up what was left of the horrors and the Dark Eldar shot what they could at Fateweaver to no avail. On my side of the turn the hawks came in and blocked off the door of the bastion to keep them out of scoring. In combat the council finally finished off the last MC and consolidated towards the middle.

For his turn five he tried to get to the objectives by jumping out of his bastion (new move to me, but it’s in the new rules). The plagues moved up to get the middle objective and his oblits changed directions to go after the hawks and Fateweaver moved near the Plagues. He shot down a bunch of the hawks and didn’t do much else. On my side of the turn I grabbed the left objective, and the dark eldar moved onto the far right objective, and the remaining guardian stayed on my home objective. The council moved out and denied the middle and far objectives. We rolled for the game to end and it did. So to end the game it was P: 3/0, S: 2/2, T: 7/2.

The sixth game was against a Draigowing army. This was the last match after a long day and the fella I played was real cool about it. We both just kinda hung out and shot the breaze a bit until it got down to the nitty gritty of table quarters and the last turn. His list was the following:

HQ: Draigo

HQ: Coteaz

Troops: 10 Paladins with the works

Troops: single hammer paladin

Troops: 4 Acolytes in a Razorback

Troops: 3 Acolytes in a Razorback

HS: Psyrifle Dread

Fort: Aegis with a Quad-Gun

The mission we were playing was P: Quarters, S: Objectives, T: KPs with a Hammer and Anvil deployment. He got the roll and made me go first. I deployed the aegis around the ruin in my quarter and threw the Deldar in it. The council was right in the middle of the deployment zone, and I infiltrated the snipers on the far objective in my zone and the area terrain just outside it. For his deployment he put up the aegis in the middle and dropped the single pali on the quad gun, and the pali-star with Draigo and Coteaz in the middle opposite the council. The dreads were given sight sitting on top of terrain, and the razors hid behind them and cover wherever they could.

For first turn we got night fight, and I put my powers on the council and moved up to shoot at the paladins. Everything else in the list fired the dreadknight and killed him. I took the first step in another Deathstar dance-off. For his side of the turn, Coteaz managed to get misfortune and prescience off regardless of my runes (lucky buggar got both powers randomly), and I couldn’t stop the misfortune. After that everything opened up into the council and took down four warlocks or so.

For the top of turn two I threw my powers on again and flat out the council behind his lines near a dreads and a razor. Everything else fired with little result at the palis. For his turn he ran the pali-star towards my snipers and opened fire on them. All but one fell, and he actually broke off the table. The rest of the army shot at the council and didn’t do any damage.

In my turn three I killed the solo pali and put some more wounds on the pali-star. The council moved up and multi-charged the dread and the razor, killing the razor and its contents and knocking off two points from the dread. In his turn the pali-star ran up and put some hurt on the Deldar, but they stuck it out, and his dread fell in combat.

For my turn four the council moved up and shot at the remaining dread, knocking off two points, and everything else shot into the paladins to little avail. For his turn he moved the pali-star forward and got himself in range of the deldar.

In my turn five we spent some time figuring out points in each quarter and where different squads could go in order to push the issue. I ended up flying my fourtune-seer into the far right quarter, left the council in the far left, scooted one guardian squad onto the near left objective and the other onto the far right one. The swooping hawks jumped down and moved into contest range of the far right objective as well as contributing their points to that quarter. I placed my chips. In his side of the turn we re-did the math and he moved the pali-star into the near right quarter overwhelming the point in my dark eldar. He moved Darigo into the near left to overwhelm my guardians and both of the acolyte squads tried to get onto the far right objective. After a bunch of shooting the fortune-seer, guardians, and three hawks stood in that zone and gave me the win.

It ended up being P: 3/1, S: 2/1, T: 4/1. The end of this game, was trying for both of us, but we realized that it was the forth game in a very long day, and that we had to be particular with the math just because of the mission type. We had a great game up to the last turn, and I would be happy to play with him again, I would just push for the game to be something other than kill points (nothing wrong with the game type, just tough to do so much math, so late, in such an even game).

At 7:30 in the morning I played the seventh game in the semi-final round against Kenny Boucher of Next Level Painting. Kenny and I were both tired and upset at the hour, but we played a fun and crazy game. His army is very beautifully painting (despite all of the required nastiness that Chaos demands). You can check it out here or where he posted it up on dakka. Next Level Painting specializes in high quality, full army paintjobs with a two week turn-around. Make sure to check out the work they do, it’s quite good.

On to the game. Kenny was 5/1 up to this point and he was bringing the Flying Demon list again (my army matches up pretty badly against Demons and there weren’t that many there, it was just some more of my bad luck all weekend). Kenny took this general list:

HQ: Bloodthirster

HQ: Fateweaver

HS: Demon Prince of Tzeentch with wings

HS: Demon Prince of Nurgle with wings

Troops: 10 Plague Bearers

Troops: 5 Plague Bearers

Fort: Aegis with Comms

The mission we were playing was P: Objectives S: Quarters, T: KPs on a vanguard deployment. One special detail was that the objectives in each players deployment zones were worth two points and the other three were only worth one. I ended up getting first turn and passing it to him, but I didn’t get invisibility or misfortune. He deployed his aegis in his zone, and I castled up again with the snipers and hawks behind and the deldar in front with a council wall in front of them.

In his first turn his preferred wave came down and he deployed them fairly defensively together in the middle of the table within charge range of my lines, but out of double tap for the deldar. He shot a few times with Fateweaver without much effect. On my side of the turn I doomed Fateweaver and moved my council up. I shot everything into him and he took one wound and didn’t disappear, but fell down. Afterwards the council charged everything into just him and he only took one more wound (I don’t care to do the math, but I guess 72 shots and 36 attacks in combat isn’t enough to take three wounds off the bird).

On his turn two Fateweaver booned the fourtune-seer and all of the MCs joined the combat and killed some guys. For my turn two I used the only power I had that could do anything and used terrify on Fateweaver, which he failed and broke out of combat. (We had to get a special ruling from Mike Brandt on that one). I made my squad fearless and they were whitled down in combat to just a few.

For his turn three Fateweaver failed to rally and one of his Tzeentch MCs dropped in combat before he finished off all the rest of the council. For my side of three things looked bleak. The dark eldar and snipers fired at one of the MCs and brought him down to one wound. The swooping hawks came down and shot Fateweaver to death (I think that I am the only one in the history of this game that can make that claim).

In his turn four the Bloodthirster took his one wound and flew away, but the Nurgle and Tzeetch demons came down and hit the Darkeldar in combat. All of his Plagues came down now and were sitting on all of the objectives, but he had to string one out from the middle objective to his corner objective to get both. In combat the darkeldar lost but didn’t break. On my side of the turn the swooping hawks moved towards the middle and didn’t do much with their shooting, and the guardian Jetbikes moved into position for the last turn. The snipers moved up and shot pistols at the plagues, but only killed one between the two of them. In combat the dark eldar killed lost a few but the duke tanked a lot of saves and they stuck it out again.

On his turn five the Thirster flew back into his quarter to overwhelm my points there and all of the plagues positioned themselves on objectives and in quarters. On my side I shot down one more of the Princes and moved the snipers up to contest my home objective. One squad of bikes flew over to contest an objective in the neutral zone, another contested his home objective, and the hawks moved up towards the center objective. He had one objective to my none, but then the swooping hawks charged his strung out plagues and made them consolidate off of his objective leaving it for my guardians. That was net me his home objective which was worth two points and put me over the one point objective that he claimed in order to get the win.

The game was fantastic and with some poor luck, I was getting beat up the whole time. In the end it ended up P: 2/1 S: 1/3, T: 3/5 but I got the primary and with it the win and a birth in the finals.

My last opponent was Pat Higgs from 11^th company (the guys doing the live streaming of the top table). You can find a link to their site on our side bar. One guess what Pat was playing… Demons. That makes it three Demon players in eight rounds. Pats general list was the following:

HQ: Fateweaver

HQ: Lord of Change

Elites: 6 Flamers of Tzeentch

Troops: 5 Plagues

FA: 9 Screamers

HS: Tzeentch Prince with wings

Pat’s Demon army

The mission we had was P: Quarters, S: Objectives, T: KPs with a Dawn of War deployment. All of the bad luck up to this point cashed itself in (I wish it was a little more spread out over the course of the weekend, but better late then never). I was able to get invisibility, misfortune, and prescience. He won the roll for first and gave it to me. I castled up again behind the aegis with the snipers behind the Deldar and then the council bubble wrapping the whole thing.

In my first turn I moved the council and gave them invis and waited. For his turn one he got his preferred wave and dropped the screamers, fateweaver, and the flying MCs in front of my lines. He also dropped one group of flamers but they misshaped and I placed them on the other side of the table. His screamers flat out over to fateweaver and the MCs used some powers to boon one of the warlocks.

On my turn two I gave the Deldar Prescience, Doomed Fateweaver, and cast Misfortune on Fateweaver. The dark eldar then proceeded to light him up with re-roll to hits, re-roll to wounds, and getting around his re-roll to save. They cause 4 unsaved wounds and dropped fateweaver altogether. (If you want to see a batrep where this combo worked against Marines check it out here). The council then flamed all of the screamers and dropped them down to one. The snipers shot at the MCs and didn’t do any real damage. In combat the council charged the last screamer and killed it with the hammer of wrath attacks. On his turn two the MCs came down and charged the council. We ended up drawing combat and sticking it out.

For the top of turn three the council split its wounds and did a bunch to both Princes and lost a few in return. The rest of the army waited for whatever else was coming down. On his side of the turn some more flamers showed up and shot up a bunch of the deldar. And then in combat I finished off one of the MCs.

For the top of turn four everything shot at and killed the flamers and the last MC was taken down in combat. On his side of the turn the plagues deep struck on objectives and the last squad of flamers came in and took its turn on the deldar.

For the top of turn five the deldar dropped the last flamers and the council went after the middle squad of plagues and killed them. On his side of the turn he just scooted around to hold objectives and quarters. The game didn’t end and then proceeded to turn six.

At the start of turn six things were mostly cleaned up. The council placed themselves in a position to outweigh his points in each quarter and the guardians claimed objectives while the hawks contested another. For his turn six the flamers that misshaped finally made it somewhere and killed a squad of guardians. The plagues charged the hawks but couldn’t kill them. At that the game ended. It resulted in P: 3/1, S: 2/1, T: 6/1 and a win in the finals.

I won bracket four and finished 6-2. If you look at NOVA’s overall score I got 11th and placed 10th for paint score, but if you look at the placement in order of brackets I was the top of the fourth bracket and 49th in order. I had a great time and wish that I had some different dice or luck for the first 7 rounds, but it just makes me more excited for next year. Congrats to you if you read this far down. Thanks for reading. I will do a little strategy write-up about what kind of armies were here, and what I saw that was effective in the new competitive meta that is 6th edition.

-Cheers

Posted in Armies, Battle Reports, Eldar, Events, Grey Knights, Road to NOVA

2 Comments

Tags: 2K, 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, batrep, Battle Report, Draigowing, Dreadknight, eldar, Grey Knights, GT, NOVA, photos, Saim Hann, tournament, Warhammer

6th Ed Battle Report: Eldar vs Necron Air Force

Sep 7

Posted by Son of Adam

Hey guys it’s finally here. Check out this latest report between the invisi-council and the cron air force. I don’t have Jessie’s list anymore so I used an approximate one until I can get another copy.

Here they are:

Eldar list:
HQ: Farseer on Jetbike with Stones, Runes of Wit, Runes of Ward, Fortune, Doom.
HQ: 10 Warlocks on Jetbikes with 8 destructors, 1 enhance, 1 embolden
HQ: Farseer on Jetbike with Stones, Runes of Wit, ES, MW, Doom, Guide
Troops: 10 Pathfinders
Troops: 10 Pathfinders
Troops: 10 Pathfinders
Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbikes
Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbikes
F.A.: 5 Swooping Hawks with Exarch and skyleap
Fort: Aegis w/Comm-link

Necron List (I lost the copy that Jesse gave me so this is approximate until I can get another one)
HQ: Anarkyr
HQ: Overloard with Mindashackle, Res Orb, Phylacktery, 2+, 3+, warscythe
Chrono-tek, haywaire-tek x3
Troops: 5 Warriors in a night scythe
Troops: 5 Warriors in a night scythe
Troops: 5 Warriors in a night scythe
Troops: 10 Immortals
Troops: 10 Immortals
HS: Doom Scythe
HS: Doom Scythe
HS: Doom Scythe
HQ: Rune Priest
Troops: 5 Grey Hunters w/plasma

Enjoy. Let us know if there are any things that we should do differently. By the way we left out music this time because there was the smallest favor for leaving it out, if you want it back or are glad its gone, please leave a comment so that we know whether to change it back or leave it. Thanks all.

-Peace

Posted in Armies, Battle Reports, Eldar, Necron, Photo/Video, Video

Tournament Review: NOVA 40k GT 9.12 Part 1

Sep 5

Posted by Son of Adam

Hey all Son of Adam back again after a long weekend in Virginia at the NOVA open 40k GT, and I am wiped out. A bunch of the fellas and I drove down there and put up in the Hyatt hotel in Crystal City. We arrived Thursday night and checked out the scene.

There were a bunch of vendors that came out. The War Store was there, Grex Airbrushes, I was lucky enough to get a conversation in with Rob from Spiky Bits, among others. There was a huge room setup with tables and terrain for 40k. Warmahordes had its own room, as did Warhammer Fantasy. All in all it was very well done and had a lot of work put in.

I feel totally wiped out as I was sick most of the weekend, and have been trying to recover since then, but I wanted to get at least a preliminary report of the weekend out there for you all. If any of you have any specific questions about the event or any of the games leave a comment and I will get back to you.

There was a huge hall dedicated to 40k. There were more tables in another room beyond this one and about double this size behind me.

I brought my Eldar with me. Here it is, just so that you have a straightforward copy of it (note: this is not the end all be all of the Eldar in 6^th it is what I could get together in a month and a half and still enjoy the game):

HQ: Farseer with Jetbike, Stones, Fortune, Doom, Runes of wit and ward. 10 Warlocks on bikes with 8 destructors, 1 enhance, 1 embolden, and 2 spears.

HQ: Farseer with Jetbike, Stones, Guide, Mind War, Doom, Eldrich Storm, Runes of wit, and a spear.

Troops: 10 Rangers

Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbikes

F.A.: 5 Swooping Hawks, with an exarch skyleap, and Hawks Talon

Fort: Aegis

HQ: The Duke (Dark Eldar Allies)

Troops: 20 Kabalite Warriors with 2 Splinter Cannons

This was the army that I brought on its display.

Round 1 played against a nice fella that brought a Blood angel with Imperial Guard list. His rough list was the following:

HQ: Librarian

Troops: Tactical squad with melta, multi-melta, power weapon in a pod.

Troops: Tactical squad with plasma, and lascannon.

Troops: Assault squad with Power Weapon

HS: Vindicator

Fort: Aegis with a quad-gun

HQ: Company Command with 4 melta guns (IG Allies)

Troops: Infantry Platoon with 4 flamer command, and two flamer auto-cannon squads.

FA: Vendetta Gunship

HS: Manticore

My round one opponent’s BA with IG.

The mission was P: Kill Points, S: Quarters, and T: Objectives with a Dawn of War deployment. I won the roll to go first and took it. I deployed all of my snipers on different objectives and dropped the Deldar in the aegis on my own objective. He threw his tanks to my right flank, and all of his troops to my left. In the first turn the council boosted up to surround all of the armor and the rest of my army took some shots with little effect. In his first turn, the manticore dropped a bunch of Deldar and the rest of his vidi’s tank shocked my council. His drop pod came down on my left flank and got in place to remove those snipers.

In my turn two, I used puppet master to fire his manticore at his blob squad and then multi-assaulted it with the rest of the vindis. My other squads fired and didn’t do much else. In his turn two, the assault marines deep-struck and shot without doing damage, and the drop pod squad came in and destroyed the snipers on my left objective.

For my turn three, the council flat out over to the blob, and all of the snipers and Deldar dropped the assault marines. For his turn three the vendetta came in and the squad inside flamed the council and everything else shot at them.

In my turn four, the council moved up and declared against the blob, but got shots on the command squad and tac squad as well. With the fire power I dropped the command and most of the blob as well as a few marines. The rest of the army shot at the tacs sitting on my left objective. Then I charged the rest of the blog with the Librarian and the tac squad. I killed all but a few and he took some down as well. In his turn four the platoon command moved out of the way, and in combat his librarian went down, but took down one of my farseers, and all but one of the tactical marines was left.

In my turn five the council moped up the last marine and the hawks came down to contest the tacs on my objective. The rest of the fire power dropped the flamer squad and my guardians jumped onto different objectives. He didn’t have much else to do with his turn and the game ended. The result was P: 13/2, S: 4/0, and T: 4/0.

In game two I played another gentleman who was 1/0 and was playing Necrons. His general list was:

HQ: Overlord with the works

HQ: Overlord in Barge

Troops: 18 warriors with 2 Voltaic-teks

Troops: 9 Immortals with a Lance-tek and lord with a Scythe

Troops: 5 Warriors in a Ghost Ark with Tremor-Tek

FA: 6 Scarabs

HS: 1 Spyder

HS: Annihilation Barge

My round two opponent’s Necron army.

The mission was P: Quarters, S: Objectives, T: KPs with a Hammer and Anvil Deployment. He made me go first and I setup the Deldar in the aegis again with it being strung out between the two objectives on my side, and I infiltrated the snipers on one of my objectives and on the center objective. He dropped the big squad with overlord in a ruin with an objective. The scarabs were on the far side of his deployment and the barges and ark were deployed centrally.

In the first turn I knocked off a couple of models and flat out the council towards the scarabs and away from a lot of his fire power to try and bait the swarms in. In his side of turn one he moved everything up and took the bait on the council. I used all 8 Destructors in overwatch and killed off all of the scarabs before they even got in for combat.

In turn two, I jumped the council up and multi-assaulted the big squad, the middle squad and the spyder. (This was my mistake at NOVA, luckily it wasn’t too important). In the combat I killed a bunch of stuff and the middle and far squads broke, but the spyder had one wound left on him and kept me tied up so that I couldn’t cut the others down. On his side of the turn, both squads regrouped and the command barge charged the council. Everything else moved up and one of the scythes came in and did some ineffectual shooting. In combat I did some damage to the barge and killed the lord and the spyder.

In turn three, I threw the council into the ghost ark and the two re-grouped squads and killed most of them and cut down the rest. Because our time was running out, I flat out the jetbikes onto the objectives. On his side of the turn the squad inside the ghost ark was surrounded and what was left advanced to try and contest objectives. The game ended there from time constraints and the result was P: 4/0, S: 5/0, and T: 9/0.

For the third round I played a game that was essentially played in the head of my opponent and me. Not much happened on the table, death-wise, but we both danced for position all game. This was a fantastic game against a great opponent. I apologize that I forgot your name friend, but if you see this go ahead and send me a message. He took the following Draigo-Cron List:

HQ: Draigo

HQ: Coteaz

Troops: 10 man paladin squad with the fixins

Troops: 3 Acolytes

FA: Interceptor Squad

HQ: Destroyer Lord (Cron Allies)

Troops: 5 Warriors in a Scythe

FA: 6 Wraiths

HS: Doom Scythe

The third mission was P: Objectives, S: KP, T: Quarters with a vanguard deployment. He won the roll for first and passed it to me. I setup the Deldar in their Aegis around my back objective, and infiltrated the snipers onto the two corner objectives. He deployed Draigo and boys behind the center piece of terrain, and the wraiths defensively behind his back objective. In turn one I put some wounds on the pali’s and moved my council all the way to my left side (I knew that if I got tied up with the Pali’s that the wraiths had the movement to come in and together beat the council). He replied to this bait by moving Draigo and boy to the opposite side towards my snipers, but still in range of the wraiths.

For my turn two I had to redploy the council in a defensive position guarding the Deldar and the snipers who were getting in range of a Pali charge now, and both of my guardians came on. In his turn two all of his sythes came on as did his interceptor squad. The scythes targeted the guardians and got all but one. He backed off with Draigo and pushed back into his deployment zone.

In my turn three I baited with the guardian that was left, and moved the council back to the middle, but close enough to kill whatever went after the guardians and close enough to bait the paladins into combat, but far enough that it would be a long charge. I threw down Hallucination on the paladins and it made them attack themselves, but with the stave he saved all 12 of his wounds (I had a bit of bad luck all weekend except the last game, which you will see). He replied by backing up further with Draigo and shooting down the guardian with a scythe. His acolytes came on and tried to hide.

In my turn four the swooping hawks killed a few of the interceptors and they broke off the table. The seer council came by to support the corner objective and leave themselves in range of Draigo’s squad. The snipers hid and shot down the acolytes. In his side of the turn he took all of his scythes off the table, moved Draigo backwards again, and brought the wraiths forward to threaten the near corner snipers.

For my turn five, I jumped the council in front of the wraiths in order to fill their space for a charge towards that objective. I dropped the swooping hawks back onto his home objective that was now abandoned by his wraiths. In his turn five all of his scythes came back on. The two night scythes dropped of their cargo and killed what was left of the snipers on the far corner objective. He broke off his destroyer Lord and just managed to be able to jump him over the council and contest the center objective. The paladins were remarkably able to kill 4 of the council and the Wraiths managed to get the charge range they needed to assault the swooping hawks, wiping them out.

We had plenty of time, but we rolled and the game ended. The result was P: 2/2. S: 2/4, T: 2/2. We tied on all of the victory conditions (KPs needed to be by three), so it came down to victory points, and he had 30 more than me and won the game. I needed another turn to finish off the killing blow, but didn’t get it.

Another shot of the hall.

For the fourth round I played against David Jensen, one of the guys that work for Stiff Neck Studios. He brought the following Necron Air force list:

HQ: Obyron

HQ: Destroyer Lord

Elite: Lychguard in a Night Scythe

Elite: Deathmarks in a Night Scythe

Troops: Warriors in a Night Scythe

HS: Doom Scythe

This mission was P: Quarters, S: Objectives, T: KP with a Dawn of War deployment. My opponent again won first turn, and again passed it to me. For deployment I dropped my Deldar in the aegis next to my right objective and infiltrated the snipers on the middle and his left objective. He placed Obyron out of line of sight in a building. For my first turn I flat out the council surrounding Obyron, and on his side he waited.

For the top of two, I shot at and charge Obyron with the entire council. I rolled terribly and only got 30+ wounds on him, all of which he passed (told you I had some bad luck). In return he killed one of the council (That is 950 pts with a full volley and charge, which resulted in not a single failed wound and a lost combat against the one model). In his turn a bunch of his fliers came on and shot a lot into the Deldar and snipers taking a few casualties as I went to ground. The lychguard came in and he placed them in a position to charge the council in the following turn. Again in combat, the entire council fought against Obyron and dealt 12 wounds (compared to the 24 by math) and again Obyron didn’t fail any while still taking another councilman down.

For my turn three, the guardians came on and I wasn’t able to do anything against the fliers, so the snipers shot at them to no avail. In combat the same thing continued to happen, half as many wounds caused and way too many saves made. On his side of the turn all of his scythes shot down my guardians and the lychguard charged in and did average damage, and again I couldn’t kill enough to make it matter.

For turn four, the council finally did what it was supposed to and dropped a bunch of the guard and Obyron in a single round of combat and cut down the leftovers. All the while, the rest of my army sat tight and waited for the end of the game. For his turn four a bunch of the scythes went to work on the now free council, while the rest whittled down one of the sniper teams to a few members.

For my turn five, I preemptively covered up all of the angles for the scythes while denying and claiming all potential quarters and objectives. In his turn he realized that if the game were to end there was no chance for him, so he flew everything off the table that could fly off except the deathmarks with the destroyer lord who came down and tried to put enough wounds on the warriors to break them. My bad luck continued and unlike the previous game, the game continued when I needed it to end.

In my turn six I was in a pretty bad spot, nothing of his was on the table, but it was all coming from a place that I couldn’t stop. I moved out my guys into places that were the best I could manage to try and win by quarters. I dropped his destroyer lord and some of the deathmarks but they held and I failed the charge on them with the swooping hawks even with the fleet roll. In his turn six I was pretty exposed. He dropped the hawks, the remaining snipers on his objective and was able to get the deathmarks in to contest the center objective. Now when I needed the game to continue it didn’t. It ended up being P: 2/2, S: 2/1, T: 3/3. Dave ended up winning on the secondary.

A shot of the top tables being played on during the invitational.

I ended up placing in the lowest 3/1 bracket going into the finals with two high winning scores and two very closely scored losses. If you guys want to hear how the last matches went post it below. If this is too long and you only want to hear the abbreviated version just post it below and I will be quicker about it.

I will say that I made it to the finals for my bracket and did get to play against some pretty good opponents, but you will have to wait for next time, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

Posted in Armies, Battle Reports, Blood Angels, Eldar, Events, Grey Knights, Necron, Road to NOVA

2 Comments

Tags: 2K, 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, batrep, Battle Report, blood angels, Doom Scythe, Draigowing, eldar, Flyers, Grey Knights, GT, Librarian, Necron, Necron Scythe, Night Scythe, NOVA, Saim Hann, tournament, Warhammer

Tournament Review: Feast of Blades Qualifier, Showcase Comics 8.12

Aug 28

Posted by Son of Adam

Hey all Son of Adam here with another Tournament Review. This weekend Vanguard and I went to a Feast of Blades qualifier at Showcase Comics in Media PA. For those of you who don’t know about Feast of Blades here is a link to their site.

This was a qualifying round for Feast of Blades and we were all playing for a chance to play in Denver this October. Feast of Blades is a 2k, non-mysterious object/terrain, non-warlord, non-double org tournament. Your score is based on a painting , sportsmanship , and a battle point system including primary and secondary objectives, with battle point modifiers.

This will be a quick recap again. (Sorry I will be very hard pressed to get much done this week). This tournament I took my eldar again –see earlier tournament reviews for its contents-, as I am trying to get some more reps in before NOVA. I added a squad of kabalite warriors this time for allies just to try them out.

In my first match I played a nice fella named Joel and his Tyranids. Joel was newer to 6^th ed and wasn’t able to play with his primary army because it wasn’t fully painted. His nids however were very nicely done. His army had a flying tyrant, a harpe, two tervigons, some zoans, some devilguants, and some hive guard.

This match was Primary: Kill Points, Secondary: Table Quarters with a vanguard deployment. I castled up in the corner and covered up with the council. Joel lined up everything as far forward as he could. I then isolated his fliers and removed them. After his fliers were down I was able to piecemeal the rest as it was all on foot and struggled to engage me at the same time. I ended up with a win in this first match.

For the second game I plated against Matt from Stomping Grounds with his drop pod Space Wolves (actually did a battle report with this same army not too long ago). This mission was P: Quarters, S: Objectives with a Dawn of War deployment. This was a very close match. I failed a lot of saves early and the game only ended up going 5 turns. For this match I again tried to castle while infiltrating my snipers some. He lined his zone with long fangs and dropped everything right on top of my lines. If the game had gone on Matt would have been in a very good position to take it from me. However, in the end I was able to claim more table quarters and objectives to win the game.

The last match I played against a fairly similar list. Walter brought Dark Eldar with Eldar allies. He included three fliers, harliquins, an autarch, some scorges, the baron w/ hellions, some trueblood venoms, and two squads of pathfinders. The mission was P: Objectives, S: Kill Points with a vanguard deployment.

This was a tricky match. I had no answer to his fliers and they did tons of damage. In this match I spread out my deployment and he reserved a good portion of his force. Walter was winning the battle of attrition in the first few turns. However with the turn of the battle, I ended up being able to weather the fire from his two fast squads as they alpha’d in from reserve, and take them out in my subsequent turn. After that he still made a very solid effort and almost took the win from me, but I was able to hold on to enough objectives to take the game.

All in all, it was a good event (catered by Chick-fil-a). A friend of mine (“That Guy” from the battle reports) ended up getting second next to me by one point. It was a good day to mess around with a different rules/scoring set as per Feast of Blades guidelines, and helped get some practice games in just before the start of NOVA.

Thanks all for reading. Sorry that this is so rushed, but I felt the need to get it out before I head down to VA. Be sure to check out some of our other stuff and watch some of our batreps.

-Peace

Posted in Armies, Battle Reports, Eldar, Events, Space Wolves

6 Comments

Tags: 2K, 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, batrep, Battle Report, eldar, Flyers, photos, Saim Hann, Showcase Comics, Space Wolves, tournament, Warhammer

List Building: Checklist

Aug 24

Posted by Son of Adam

Be intentional about the Heavy Support and Fast Attack choices that you pick.

Hey guys, Son of Adam here again with a little list building checklist. This is not the end all be all of list building, but is simply a quick check to run through your list in order to see if you are missing something.

If you are building an all-comers list for any mission in the new BRB, then there are some things that you ought to make sure that you consider. Here is a very basic two part checklist to run through your list. The first is directly written with the Golden Rules in mind, and the second are with the potential meta in mind.

Mission Specific:

How will this list handle scoring/contesting 6 different objectives?
Is there any way to reduce my kill point total? Does this list have too many?
Are all of the heavy support choices in this list diverse enough to take advantage of Big Guns Never Tire without creating too much of a victory points liability should they be destroyed and award the opponent victory points?
Are all of the Fast Attack choices in this list diverse enough to take advantage of The Scouring without creating too much of a victory points liability should they be destroyed and award the opponent victory points?
Can this list get a near guarantee that I claim one particular objective of my choosing?
Can this list guarantee that I can deny one particular objective of my opponent?
Does this list provide a solution for seizing and holding the relic?
Does this list provide a solution for forcing an opponent to drop the relic?
Does this list have a hard to kill Warlord?
Does this list provide a means to kill the opponents Warlord?
Does this list have an easy to kill unit?
Does this list provide a means for getting the first kill?
What in this list is poised to be in the enemy’s deployment zone at the end of the game?

General Defense:

Does this list provide a solution for AV14 vehicles?
Does this list provide a solution for Deathstars?
Does this list provide a solution for fliers?
Does this list provide a solution for hordes?
Does this list provide a solution for MSU?
Does this list provide a solution for 2+ saves?
Does this list provide a solution for Monstrous Creatures
Does this list provide a solution for Psykers?

Expect to see more fliers in the 6th Edition. How will your list defend against them?

Notice that these are not overly specific. That is intentional. There are many tricky ways to deal with the different threats and achieve different objectives. For example you can deal with a deathstar without killing it (see here for that article). Or win “The Emperor’s Will” without trying to claim the opponents objective (article here), or any at all (article here). Keep an eye out for providing an answer to each of these items in non-traditional ways.

This is a very general checklist, but not a bad one to give your list a quick run-through. Most of us try to run through this checklist in our heads anyway, but it is good to have a tangible list in front of us, and will benefit those that have not considered it before.

Run your list through this checklist and tell us about how it fared. Feel free to post an overview of your list and its strengths and weaknesses in regards to the checklist in the comments below. If you want to send me a copy of your list and your review personally send it to SonofAdam@MasterCraftGaming.com.

Posted in Game Strategy, List Building

3 Comments

Tags: 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, Checklist, deathstar, Flyers, List building, Mission 5, Monstrous Creature, Strategy, tactics, Tying for the win, Warhammer

Road to NOVA: Necron Air Force

Aug 23

Posted by Son of Adam

The Necron Air Force is a powerhouse in the 6th edition.

Hey guys Son of Adam here with a NOVA prep discussion about the Necron Air Force list. As you guys know from the teaser below I recently had a chance to play against the dreaded Necron Air Force in a NOVA primer mission.

Some quick updates on my progress before we begin: with 7 days left, most of the army is built, most of the basing is done, the army list is getting near finalized, and the display board needs a bunch of work. Tonight some of the fellas are coming over and we are going to paint all night. Even though my stuff isn’t done yet, I’m still going to try and produce some content for the site and so here we go.

The Necron Air Force is a very potent list that has most NOVA attendees frightened. That is one of the reasons I wanted to get a battle report in here about them. This list is generally based off of having maxed out, or nearly maxed out flyers. It also tends to add one of the Necron characters (typically the Traveler or the Stormlord) with a large and tough enough squad not to get wiped on the first turn. Then the question has been what travels in the night scythes. Some swear to the survivability of the immortals, some the fire power/tricks of crypteks, and other the points effectiveness of the 5 man warrior squad. In the end you are generally left with 8+ scythes (3 of which are doom scythes), a beefy/deathstar unit, and massed mobile scoring units.

Some of the guys at my FLGS were talking about how to challenge this list and flyer lists in general. Each time an idea came up; there would only need to be a slight change to the Air Force list that would knock it down again. We even ran the IG air force against it, but the Doom Scythe is just too strong for aerial combat. In the end it kept looking like nothing could shoot down enough of those flying croissants without being wiped off the table. This may change with new updates and war gear, but for now the biggest threat to flyers is other flyers and even then, cron flyers are the best of the lot at this point.

One problem that developed was a mirror match. In the competitive scene, you have to expect that whatever is being considered one of the most powerful lists is going to be there in numbers. If that’s the case, everyone who is bringing this list must consider this possibility and prepare accordingly. This is where the special characters come in. The stormlord allows for some extra defense, while providing unreliable support at bringing flyers down. On the other hand the Traveler allows you to potentially get control of 4 Doom Scythes a turn with his mind in the machine.

Necron’s firepower destroys units.

As far as a response to flyers goes, some armies have a few options to bring them down, others must rely on allies. Presently flyers are the best way to fight flyers, but this inherently has the problem of escalation. If I bring three flyers then my opponent will bring four. And, in the flyer vs. flyer games, first turn tends to loose as they will alpha strike an empty table and then get alpha’d in return. On the other hand you can bring AA defense guns on the Aegis or the Bastion. However, the Aegis gun tends to get dropped rather quickly and the Bastion is expensive and disallows scoring.

There is only one real weakness that I can find for the flyers in this pre-AA adolescence of 6^th edition in regards to NOVA style tournaments. However, this weakness is not one that is exclusively held by flyers. Tanks and flyers don’t count for scoring in table quarters missions. If you start the game with 8+ flyers, or >1000 pts for crons, you will be at an initial disadvantage against armies like nids that are all scoring.

All in all the air force lists are very strong until 6^th gets more AA rules and there isn’t much that can compete with them. However, with the prevalence of table quarter missions, some inexperienced cron players may be eliminated during these rounds. I won’t go into what happened in my last match, but you can watch some of the other air force games on different sites and check back here by the end of the week to see how this one went. I will be a little more thorough in how I tried to defend against the crons in the strategy follow-up that comes out after the report.

Thanks for reading. Check back soon for some of the content that will be coming out. Make sure to follow our website, like our facebook, and subscribe to the YouTube channel.

-Peace.

Posted in Events, Game Strategy, List Building, Necron, Road to NOVA

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Tags: 2K, 40k, 6th, 6th Ed., 6th edition, Doom Scythe, Flyers, Necron, necron air force, Necron Scythe, Night Scythe, NOVA, Strategy, tactics, tournament, Warhammer