Calypso2ts @ Da Boyz GT: 3 of 3

It might be fitting to start the New Year by finishing off the previous year's GT reports and moving on from the previous year's successes and failures.

This will be the final installment of my series on Da Boyz GT.  So far I have covered Round 1 and Round 2.  I plan to cover Round 3 and 4 in this entry.  For those who have not followed the first two games here is a spoiler alert - I managed full points in my first two games which puts me in a great position going forward.  Luckily, in Round 3 I had a chance to compete against Andrew Gonyo who brought a combined Grey Knights/Guard army.  He was also (another give away here) the eventual winner of the whole GT.

I have actually seen the list he played posted in the past and I theoretically knew how to beat it and I also know it is a very difficult matchup.  

Round 3

As with the other rounds, First Blood is worth 3 points and the other objectives are scored 10-5-0

Opponent: Grey Knights w/ Guard Allies

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire, Emperor's Will, Kill Points (based on unit cost)

Deployment: Dawn of War

GK/Guard

HQ

Coteaz

Xenos Inquisitor w/ Terminator Armor, Mastery 1

CCS w/ Flamer

Troops

10x Strike Squad w/ 2x Psycannon, Psybolt Ammunition

10x Strike Squad w/ 2x Psycannon, Psybolt Ammunition

10x Strike Squad w/ 2x Psycannon, Psybolt Ammunition

10x Strike Squad w/ 2x Psycannon, Psybolt Ammunition

10x Henchmen w/ 10x Storm Bolters

10x Henchmen w/ 10x Storm Bolters

Infantry Platoon w/ ~40 bodies

I lose the roll to choose deployment zone and have to move my stuff to the other side of the table, but the table was otherwise symmetrical.  There is literally 0 full line of site blocking terrain, so I am going to eat a lot of fire.

Luckily, I win the first turn so I have a chance to deal some damage and secure myself a landing zone if I am lucky.  This was an extremely tense game so I am only going to hit a few of the highlights/turning points of the game.

Unfortunately he gets Misfortune on his Xenos Inquisitor - this power is murder in general.

Deployemnt

Andrew Deployed across the entire board but had enough bodies to cover almost the entire thing.  He placed the henchmen on the flanks and Coteaz was dead center.  There was no way to take out all the Warp Quake, but at least he had a relatively slow force.

I came down on his right flank with Fateweaver, Flamers, Fiends and Screamers.  Two Grinders also came down on the flank with one relatively close to his troops and the other scattering back.  I earn first blood by nuking a Henchmen squad using the Screamer sweep attacks and kill off a few stray knights/guardsmen.

Key Moments

Andrew immobilizes one Grinder and prioritizes the Flamers/Screamers with his shooting doing a lot of damage to the Flamers before they have a chance to fight back.  Misfortune enables him to wreck the Screamers.

I fail a 9" charge with a Grinder into his platoon by 0.5" on turn 2.  This would have tied up the infantry for several turns - since they cannot hurt it and fleeing would have likely put them off the board.  It also protects the grinder while creating a wall of bodies.

I scatter two units turn 2 - the Changelings 9x Horrors and 6x Fiends over 10" each into Warp Quake which gets them both placed to be destroyed by Coteaz's Prescience'ed squad.

I spawn his Inquisitor and use it to eat overwatch on the platoon and Fateweaver pushes into base with his Comissar - I Smash and he makes his Lookout Sir! - failing that would have sent the squad fleeing since he lost combat a lot.

The Fiends surprise the hell out of Andrew with number and strength of attacks when they murder an entire GK squad and the CCS in one round of combat.

Fateweaver fails 3 of 6 saves from Grenades and a single Daemon Hammer in the combat and dies prematurely.

I make a huge mistake in my Emperor's Will objective and place it in the opposite corner from the Big Guns Objectives.  If I had placed it near them, I could have defended it as Andrew did not progress past his board half all game and I had all my troops other than the Changeling's squad left!

Lessons Learned

This is a really hard list for Daemons to play against in general - psybolt ammunition with preferred enemy and a platoon to wrap around the important units is hard to break.  I think the game could have easily been 20-18 or maybe even ended in my favor with a little luck.  Even an opportune Deny the Witch! could have made a huge difference.  Andrew had to deploy the way he did, since he could not give me a landing zone on either flank and his army was too slow to wheel and face me if he had clumped up more.

Round 4

In spite of only scoring 8 points last round I am feeling pretty good at this point.  A nice bonus is that I was also informed at the start of the round that I was in the top 15 painting (and the top 10 of people who painted their own armies) and I was invited to show off the next morning for player voting.  I know I was not going to win a prize, but it was a very nice honor.

This round was against the same opponent I played two years ago, - Justin Cook who finished 10th overall - he was running Necrons while I had a Sisters of Battle army.  This time around he was running a dead hard Tyranids list.  The vital statistics for this game are:

Opponent: Tyranids

Mission: Slay the Warlord, Scouring, Kill Points

Deployment: Dawn of War

My opponents list included:

HQ

Hive Tyrant, Old Adversary, TL Devourers, Wings, Mastery 1

Hive Tyrant, Old Adversary, TL Devourers, Wings, Mastery 1

Elites

2x Hive Guard

2x Hive Guard

2x Hive Guard

Troops

10x Termagaunts

Tervignon

10x Termagaunts

Tervignon

10x Termagaunts

Fast Attack

-

Heavy Support

2x Carnifex w/ TL Devourers

This list brings a lot of twin linked strength 6 shooting and I really do not matchup well against this kind of army.  This is especially true based on the powers he rolls up:

Hive Tyrant - Iron Arm

Hive Tyrant - Warp Speed

Tervignon - Iron Arm, Endurance

Tervignon - Iron Arm, Endurance

This is just about the worst possible combination of powers for me - barring Warp Speed which could have been another Iron Arm.

Both our Warlord powers are irrelevant this game.  Since we get 3 Scouring objectives, by the Da Boyz rules one of them goes in the board center.

Deployment

The Tyranids deploy in their typical castle.  This makes it almost impossible for them to get to my far objective, which is fine with me and just about guarantees at least a draw on Scouring.

Turn 1 - Daemons

We get Night Fight for turn 1, and I choose a wave consisting of Fateweaver, 2x Soul Grinders, 2x Fiends and Screamers.  I am relying on my lower strength shooting to pave the road for me on Turn 2.  I want to be in assault range Turn 2 but I need to get him to commit his Tyrants early on as well, so I Deep Strike a little less aggressively than I normally do.

The Screamers Turbo Boosted forward and the Fiends dropped in first so I could be near Fate.  Just about the whole army is near her, so I am eligible for magical rerolls.  with Night Fight turn 1 and no real good targets, everyone ran this turn.

The Tyranids commit the Tyrants and I made a huge mistake with the Screamers.  I forgot about precision shots and he managed to snipe the Screamer nearest Fate so I took far more casualties than I should have.  If I had moved back even 2", I would have been in assault range and preserved most of my force.  There was a little lack of luck as well - 24 Devourer shots produced around 6 precision shots and I managed to fail half the 4+ and 3+ saves I had on the screamer.

Turn 2

I get the Flamers, Horror and Plaguebearer in - the plagues spent the game sitting on the back objective out of site and quite comfortable overall.   I am conservative with both units so I can shoot a hole in the gaunt screen up front and attempt to ground the Tyrants.

Both Tyrants end up grounded - one due to a Soul Grinder Harvester gun and the other from the Horrors.  The Flamers then cut a hole in the Gaunt line while fate does some shooting of her own into the screen.  I use the screamers to eat one overwatch and make my saves on the second.  At this point things get a bit crazy.

you can see the new gaunts that were spawned and also both Tyrants are alive.  One tyrant killed the Screamers for First Blood - while collectively they make 8 of 10 Feel No Pain saves as I rend the hell out of them both.  This is a total bummer for me as I thought I would have them both dead or on 1 or 2 wounds (36 attacks, 18 hits, 3 rends, 1 saved).  The up side for me too with some luck is even higher!

The Carnifex are lined up for an assault here, but they fail their Changeling check and actually blow away a huge number of Gaunts and cannot assault in to save the Tyrant.  Also, the Hive Guard elect to shoot at the Grinders but cause no damage.

Turn 3

One unit of Horrors come in and Deep Strike back so they can move up to shoot or claim objectives.  No reserves for me this turn.  Thankfully I had managed to take out the non-warlord tyrant and I hit and run out of the gaunts combat so I can charge back in the next turn.

Fateweaver has little choice here and has to land - so I opt to get close enough to Spawn a Tervignon and take some other pot shots at the bugs.

You can tell this one was taken after my shooting phase because (well the Fiends are in assault) but also the Flamers destroy the Hive Guard and the Carnifex.  I also put a wound on Fateweaver with my own Battle Cannon.  At this point this look pretty good for me.

I want to free up his Tyrant so I can shoot it, so I Hit and Run one of the fiend units out and leave a single model to engage the Tyrant and gaunts.  The Tervi spawns some gaunts to go after Fateweaver.

Turn 4

This was a rough turn for a few reasons.  First, the game went south at the bottom of 3 (see below).  Second, I received a call and I had to drop from the tournament due to an emergency.  I considered conceding and just packing up, but I knew that would be unfair to my other opponents and others at the tournament.

I do not get any of my reserves - which are just troops at this point so that is okay.   There is, however, one unit notable missing from this picture - yep fateweaver took 1 wound from gaunts (second failed 3++ rerollable in a row) and then fled the battlefield giving up the Warlord objective.  Things are looking much grimmer, I was going to use her to Breath, Bolt and Spawn his warlord.

The Flamers line up his Tervi in their sites along with some stray gaunts, but poor rolling means they only strip  two wounds from the beast. I also make a big mistake here and do not spread out my Horrors appropriately.  If I had, his Warlord would not have been able to contest the center objective.

On his turn, the Tervignon goes into the Grinder and I put another wound on it while its Gaunts go into the Flamers and I lose a pair of them.  The Tyrant is just contesting the objective, and I have about 20 Horrors nearby.

With that we run out of time, and I do not push it since I need to get going.  I think with another round I might have had a chance to win this one.  I had three units to shoot at the Tyrant, the Flamers were likely to have stuck around and another grinder to pile into it.  If I did  not ground it, the grinder could hit the Tervi while the Tyrant probably could not finish off all my Horrors before I got to it the next turn.

The end result is a 15 - 18 loss for me due to the First Blood on the screamers. (Fast attack did not give bonus points even though I called this Scouring).  I took Kill Points, Tied Objective and Lost the Warlord.

Tournament Recap

I ended the tournament with (33, 33, 15, 8) - 89 Battle Points over 4 rounds - two rounds remained in the tournament.  The Da Boyz site puts me at 81 which does not really matter in the grand scheme of things.  I scored a 38/6 on painting which was one of my goals for improvement from last year.  I think I am most proud of the improvement in my painting over the last year.  I am also proud of the sportsmanship score I earned - especially given I tabled two opponents.  I earned a 36/60 on sportsmanship - which was scored by ranking your favorite opponents from each game.  My opponents must have given me some favorable marks to finish so high when I did not receive points for the last 2 rounds.

My final finish - with correct Battle Points - was 41/79.  For my own projections, continuing on the pace I was going for Battle Points and Sportsmanship I may have had a shot at around 235 total points, which would have put me in the top 5 for the event.  If anything, the unfortunate drop has motivated me to be ready for next year.

Army List Recap

I hate to say it, but Fateweaver did not bring much to this list overall and she does not fit with my playstyle.  It is too many points tied into a single model.  I will probably not field her again, I would rather bring along 300 more points of killing power than her.  I also noticed that with Overwatch, rapid fire rules and less cover the Fiends are more a glass cannon than before.  They do protect themselves at times in CC by clearing a combat before the enemy can swing, but I am moving more towards a solid anvil unit.  I think one unit of Fiends fits for great utility.

The list I have been experimenting with lately includes a Sorcerer and cultists for a Comms Relay which is a huge force multiplier.  Not to mention some of the Psychic powers can straight up win games at times - Invisibility is a great example.  I have also returned to running a single Tzeetch herald as my HQ - it makes the Flamers much better.  I plan to post a trial with my new Daemons list to open the new year, so stay tuned.