hyv3mynd @ August RTT - Games 3, 4, and Results

If you missed my first two games, they can be found here.  At this point, I'm 2-0 going into round #3.  My opponent for this game was Bryan, who despite frequenting the same monthly events as myself for roughly three years, has never actually been paired against me.  He's been playing Imperial Fists as far back as I can remember.  In fact, I've never seen him play another army.

Bryan's list (1,000pts):
Lysander
Sternguard x10 + combi-melta x1, drop pod
Tactical Squad x10 + melta, hvy bolter, drop pod
Tactical Squad x10 + missile launcher, flamer
Vindicator



The mission was The Relic with Vanguard Strike deployment (4'x4' table due to small army sizes).  I won the roll but elect to have Bryan take the first turn.

He deploys his 10 man foot squad in a ruin.  The vindicator is right behind the ruin.  The other units will be arriving via pods.

 Based on his list design and friendly smack talk, I figure he's gonna try to alpha strike my wriathknight with the sternguard so I put him up front to take it.  Behind is the bulk of my force protected from drop pods unless he wants to try his one melta shot against my serpent.  I don't try to seize.

Turn 1:

Yup, the pod comes down right in front of the wraithknight, scattering back a few but with plenty of room to get everyone in range.  They use Lysander's bolter drill and poison rounds to cause 18 wounds, but my dice beat the odds and the big guy survives with 1 wound remaining.

I jump him to the top floor of the closest ruin to protect him from Lysander's assault.  Walkers move up with the serpent which dumps out the wraithguard.  I put everything except the wraithknight into the sternguard, but despite the withering fire, two survive and Lysander has taken a wound.  The wraithknight goes for the drop pod for first blood but wiffs.

Turn 2:

The second pod arrives, scatters off the relic, and the unit combat squads out.  They're an inch too far to pick up the relic.  He wants to save Lysander for my walkers so the newly arrived unit targets the wraithknight and the melta gun tags the last wound for first blood.

Lysander's unit assaults my walkers and he loses both sternguard to overwatch.  My walkers kick Lysander causing another wound and their power fields prevent most damage.  I take a single hull point.

Both my bike units arrive and take up position to hit the tac squad that just dropped in.  Wraithguard jump back in their ride which hops up the flank.  My shooting takes out 3 of the lower combat squad and 1 of the other.  Lysander takes out the damaged walker and a hull point from another, but takes a 3rd wound.

Turn 3:

The combat squads pull back towards the relic, the stronger half picking it up.  He's keeping his vindicator safely tucked away from my shooting in case he needs to drop a pie plate on the relic.  His shooting is ineffective.  Lysander finishes my walkers and is left in the open.

 I surround Lysander with bikes and my serpent keeps chasing the relic.  My bikes are able to gun down Lysander's last wound.  My serpent and artillery decimate the combat squads leaving a single fleeing marine.

Turn 4:

The fleeing marine rallies and heads for the relic.  The vindicator comes out to play finally and the original tac squad starts descending their ruin.  The demolisher shell is on target and along with bolter shots, I lose 2 bikes and 2 hull points from my serpent.

My serpent slides up 6", passes its terrain test, and dumps out the wraithguard into contact with the relic.  I jump my lone bike into contact as well for good measure, though the wraithguard are the ones who pick it up.  The other bikes turbo boost into his DZ for linebreaker.  My shooting takes out the lone marine by the relic, but I leave my serpent shield up this time.

Turn 5:

The vindicator backs up some and the original tac squad comes for the relic.  I lose 1 wraithguard to shooting, pop 1 marine with overwatch, and he fails his assault move.

I put my lone bike in front of his tac squad to block.  Wraithguard embark the serpent with the relic and it jumps the wall, passing the terrain test and holding safely with its holofield save and serpent shield.

We roll out the remaining turns, but I'm able to keep the relic safe.  The game ends on turn 6 and Bryan has scored first blood while I had the relic, his warlord, and linebreaker for a 5-1 victory.

This was easily the most entertaining game of the day.  Not only did my opponent cause more damage to my army than my first two opponents combined, but he also bagged my wraithknight for first blood which is no small task.  I knew there wasn't much I could do to prevent it, so I banked on sacrificing a 240pt model in exchange for sternguard and Lysander which cost nearly double.  It nearly cost me when I couldn't shoot them down, but luckily my walkers with 2 str5 attacks each in combat whittled Lysander down while making some key invuln saves.

My 4th and final opponent of this event was Dave, who also happened to be my final opponent at the top table in last month's event.  I know Dave is a really solid player and this match would be hard-fought.

Dave's list:
CCS + meltas, chimera
PCS + flamers, chimera
Platoon (20) + flamers x2, power axes, melta bombs
Platoon (30) + autocannons x3, power axes, melta bombs
Vets + recon, sniper rifles x3, autocannon
Sentinels x3 + autocannons
Griffon

The mission was The Emperor's Will with Dawn of War deployment.  My warlord trait allowed me to auto-select night fight for the first turn.  For this mission, I also rolled twice on telepathy with my seer and got terrify and hallucination.  Dave won the roll and elected to go first.

Starting on the left are his sentinels, blob of 30, CCS chimera, griffon, recon vets in area terrain,  PCS chimera, and blob of 20.  You can see most of my counter deployment.  I put my wraithknight up front since all of his long range shooting is str7 or less (with a couple meltas in the central chimera).  My artillery are in the back right, walkers back left, bikes reserved.  I opt not to seize.

Turn 1:

Both chimeras advance up the middle.  Sentinels push up the left flank and the 20 man blob runs up the right.  The central chimera spotlights my artillery, the griffon drops a bomb right on 3 guardians, and the unit flees the table giving up first blood.  The other chimera spotlights my wave serpent and a ton of autocannons open up on it, but I only lose a single hull point.  My wraithknight loses a wound from sniper fire.

 Well, I gave up first blood and a unit that would have been great for barrage sniping his heavy teams.  I send the wraithknight right up the middle.  My serpent moves for a save and aims for sentinels.  My walkers move up the right flank for shots on the PCS chimera.  I can only get one in the side arc with the other two in the front and after the dice fall, I only cause 2 hull points.  The rest of my shooting explodes 2 of the sentinels (blast markers = craters this game).

Turn 2:

The 20 man blob on the right bunches up for hi-fives since I have no more templates.  There's a small amount of shuffling but not much.  My wraithnight takes 2 more wounds from meltas and snipers.  The rest of his army is unable to penetrate my armor and cover saves.

Both bike units arrive on the left (the other is just off camera left).  The wraithknight jumps to the left flank to distance itself from the melta team.  Walkers continue to dance the right flank with movement and battle focus.  My serpent jumps up to move closer to my objective and malediction range for future turns.  My shooting explodes the last sentinel and the central CCS chimera leaving 3 survivors.  Bikes assault jump deep into my corner.

Turn 3:

I know that big blob has melta bombs, but I'm baiting him through terrain and away from his objective.  He runs his warlord unit back towards his table edge.  His entire shooting phase is ineffective either against my t8 knight, armor on the walkers, or cover on the serpent.

I start jockeying for better positions.  My knight pulls back to bait the big squad more.  My serpent dumps out the wraithguard and seer so he can cast a malediction next turn.  Bikes jump up to fire cannons.  Walkers do the flank shuffle.  My knight explodes the griffon with a side shot.  My serpent wrecks the last chimera and pins the unit.  Walkers target the 20 man unit in area terrain and they go to ground, losing a bunch.

Turn 4:

Only the big blob and vets remain un-pinned this turn.  They reposition.  The autocannon teams are able to take 1 hull point from a walker and 1 more from my serpent.

I'm slowly pushing up for a late game objective grab.  My seer fails his psy test.  My shooting downs a bunch of vets and several from the blob on the right who don't go to ground this time.

Turn 5:

Dave makes his late game push onto his objective with the survivors of the 30 man blob, PCS, and 20 man blob.  This time he targets bikes and I lose 4 with the 2 remaining pinned from sniper fire.

 I could be in trouble here at the bottom of 5.  We each have one objective, he has first blood, and I have linebreaker.  I get hallucinate off but the result pins the big blob on the left.  I move the knight up to assault them and pull them off their objective.  My vehicles make an aggressive push for his objective.  I'm able to kill a bunch of guardsmen but not enough.

We roll and the game goes on.

Turn 6:

The last survivor of the 20 man blob comes after my serpent with a melta bomb.  Vets and PCS line up in terrain by his objective.  My knight smashes a few guys and takes a wound from melta bombs and we're still locked.  His vets finish my last bikes.  His melta bomb misses my serpent.

Last shot of the game despite us going the full 7 turns.  I wipe out his central scoring units.  He continues to miss my serpent with one guy running along with melta bombs.  He finishes my wraithknight at the bottom of 7 but I've pulled him far enough off his objective he can't retake it.

The game ends after 7 turns.  I hold one objective with no bonus points.  My opponent scored first blood.  I barely eek out a victory 3-1.

My opponent Dave fought valiantly, easily the best guard player I've ever faced.  However, his army relied entirely on str6-7 shooting and it just wasn't enough to crack my key units.  He did roll uncharacteristically low with his autocannons against my armor, and my cover/invulns were spot on.  This game could have gone either way with just a few more damage results against my vehicles.  Their continued attrition on his units are what allowed me to prevail in the end.

Here are the final results after painting and favorite opponent votes were tallied:
Aaron 76/60/11/5 (me!) Eldar
Kevin 70/40/15/15 (blog author: Grubnards) Eldar
Andy 64/44/10/10 (blog author: Crimthaan) Tau
Chris P 62/44/13/5 (blog author: Crispy) Tyranids
Dave K 59/40/14/5 (my final opponent) Imperial Guard

There were a total of 17 players this month plus a ringer.  I was the only player with max battle points as all of the other frontrunners drew on either the relic or emperor's will missions.  It was also awesome that The Mandulian Chapel blog authors (The Grand Strategery gaming club) placed 1-4 in the pack.  The big surprise was our co-author Grubnards taking 2nd overall with a perfect painting score and 3 out of 4 of his opponents naming him as their favorite opponent of the day.

Overall, my list performed well.  The 4 practice games I played running up to the event really helped also.  I actually lost one game that I haven't written up yet, but it showed me exactly how my army can lose and how to avoid it.  I'd say 2 of my games were won by list design while the other two involved more tactics with the final game heavily influenced by the dice.  Wraithnights are not to be taken lightly.  Don't believe all the internet naysayers.  Yes, 1,000pts is a poor points level to judge them but I was also undefeated last month at 1,500pts using one as well.  The next two months will both be at 1,850pts and I'll get to throw down my entire list for DaBoyz GT 2013.

The thing that makes Eldar so strong right now is the ability to control the flow of game from deployment onwards with tons of units that can move 12" and shoot 36"+.  By dominating the 36" kill zone and whittling down whatever units present themselves, they can ensure numerical superiority for the late turns.  Of course, Tau also do this well which is why you see Tau and Eldar dominating local and national events.  Space marines will bring an interesting change to the meta with everything tactical being twin-linked for free, and devestator centurians matching Tau/Eldar range and shooting output.