The Mandulian Monks go to War - March 2013

If you've been following the blog over the past 6 months, you'll have noticed some pretty major changes.  I've recruited 3 more authors and changed the blog from synaps3 to The Mandulian Chapel.  These changes were not brought about lightly, and I had several motives.  The first factor was the birth of my son last year and other medical stuff behind the scenes.  More authors means more regular content for the 400 visitors we get a day.  The second thing I took into consideration was that all of us share common values in the hobby realm.  You'll see that develop more as hobby articles become more prolific from painting to basing and terrain building.

My co-authors have also been regulars in our local tournament scene over the past 3 years I've been playing.   They were strangers to me until I had attended several tournaments, and have grown to be great mates.  As mentioned in earlier articles, this month's tournament is a team/partner event.  We're fortunate that our 4 authors will all be attending and representing 3 teams.  My buddy Andy (Crimthaan) hit me up months ago, Crispy and Calypso2ts paired up, and Grubnards is bringing Chris (Sinistermind) along.


We'll be taking this opportunity to discuss our various lists, concepts, and approaches.

When Andy originally contacted me, I was deep in to my CSM refurb project so we were going to bring dual CSM.  We even got in a practice game with Grubnards and Sinistermind before they pointed out that painting was being scored and somehow I had missed that detail.  Not nearly close enough for an average 3 color score, we decided to make a 100% change to get some painting points and at least have a shot.

Here's what we're going with:

hyv3mynd's GK - 1000pts any FO template
Grand Master + MC hammer, incinerator, blind grenades
Purifiers x10 + incinerators x 4, halberds x2, hammer x1
Strike Squad x5 + psycannon, razorback + psybolt ammo
Stormraven + hurricane sponsons, hvy bolter, assault cannon, psybolt ammo
Dreadnought + autocannons, psybolt ammo

Crimthaan's Crimson Fists - 1000pts any FO template
Librarian + terminator armor, storm shield
Ironclad Dreadnought + seismic hammer, melta, flamer, drop pod
Tactical Squad x10 + power fist, melta, multi-melta, rhino
Tactical Squad x10 + combi-plasma, plasma, plasma cannon
Stormtalon + assault cannon, lascannons
Thunderfire Cannon

I decided to go light on troops and heavy on toys.  The GM can mitigate some of that by making purifiers and the dread scoring.  The stormraven puts out   19 shots at 12" all twin linked and str 5/6/7.  If I can deliver the GM, purifiers, and their 5 incinerators, it should be a crippling blow.  The rifle dread, razorback, and psycannon squad all gun for fortifications so the stormraven can arrive safely.  Crimthaan's list is fire support and disruption.  The dread drops in and the blasts punish anything in the open or clustered from a disembark.   We decided to go with double flyers instead of a fortification so I'm hoping one of them survives long into the game to create some attrition.  We should get a decent painting score too.  I'll add pics after the event.

Sorry for the long winded intro... on to the other teams.

Crispy & Calypso2ts

Calypso2ts ~ With the new changes to Daemons and an upcoming team tournament this was the perfect opportunity to give in to the encroaching Hive Mind and field a Tyranid army for the monthly teams tournament.  Unfortunately, I do not actually own any Tyranids (or a space marine for that matter).  With a little bit of persuasion, however, Hyv3mynd has been gracious enough to share some of his Tyranids with me.

I had a chance to play a Tyranids army at Da Boyz GT this year and I was impressed by the amount of firepower they could throw out.  I also noticed that Biomancy has a huge impact on how the army plays - I think it is a very interesting army now and it has great flexibility in how it plays based on those psychic powers.   To take advantage of Biomancy, a lot of Dakka and the abundance of Tyranid scoring units I will be bringing the following next week (thanks to Crispy for his insight into this list as well).

Calypso's list:
Tyrant + wings, t/l devourers x2
Hive Guard x2
Termagants x10
Tervigon + adrenals, toxins, 3 powers
Carnifex x2 + t/l devourers x2 each

For 1000 points I feel like there is a lot packed into this list.  It puts out X strength 6 shots which wound MEQ on a 2+ and can remove a Rhino Chassis through attrition.  It has some nasty psychic potential with 2 psykers rolling 4 times on the Biomancy table.  It will have at least 3 troop units - and more with some luck.  Finally, it has 18 T6 3+ save wounds before psychic powers.  One thing I have noticed in the past running this kind of tournament is that somehow the density of heavy/special weapons tends to be lower which will make these wounds more survivable.

Crispy and I also have some synergy with his Ymargls and the Doom putting immediate pressure on an opponent's backfield.  He brings along a psyker of his own and his Prime can run with the Carnifex to spread wounds, tank wounds and benefit form T6 until he can get into CC.  The Prime also provides some additional front side Synapse to the army.

How do I see this army playing?  Like most Tyranids it is going to have to be deployed to support one another with some bubble wrapping smaller bugs.  Psychic powers has a big influence on what the Tervi does - she will move up if she has endurance/Iron Arm but hug cover and stay out of line of sight without it.

Crispy’s List:
Prime w/ LW&BS, Toxin Sacs
Doom w/ Pod
9 Ymgarls
Tervigon w/ Claws, +2 powers, Adrenal & Toxins
14 Gaunts
3 Biovores
5 stealers w/ broodlord

Crispy ~  Starting off, I have to echo something Hyv3mynd brought up: I’ve been attending tournaments around upstate NY for the past few years, and over that time I’ve met tons of great people and built some solid friendships. I know that tournaments can be daunting, and the competition may be stressful, but the great games and great people have far outweighed any negative experiences. For those in the area that don’t do the tournament scene, come out to try the Millennium monthly tournaments.

    The thing that I like most about our 2 lists is the threat layering. Combined, we have forward, mid, and back field units that work in concert to put pressure on the enemy. Starting second turn, we’ll bring a lot of firepower to bear with the Tyrant flying around, the Carnifex unit in good position for gunning, and Doom & the Ymgarls coming in (assuming favorable reserves) .  Backing our forward elements up, we have our troop Tervigons giving us at least 7 troops to grab objectives (2 Tervs, 2 Gaunts, 1 Stealer and at least 2 spawns), and 3 psykers (the 2 Tervs and the Broodlord) throwing out buffs.

    In the backfield, we have biovores lobbing spore mines, and Hive guard shooting away. Neither need line of sight to get their jobs done, so they’ll hopefully be behind terrain. Hiding with them will probably be a few small units of gaunts sitting on objectives.

    This will be the first time I’m using doom, and I’m looking forward to it. He’s only unit in the codex I haven’t tried (well, there is Old One Eye but I think we all put a mental blank spot on that page).

That’s about it. We’ll see how things turn out on Saturday.
-Crispy

Grubnards & Sinistermind

Grubnards ~  I've been attending the monthly events at Millennium Games now for the past 5 years and during that time I've met and made many friends. Like Crispy said, the competition is tough but the players, terrain, location, and staff are top notch. While based out of Rochester NY, event attendees regularly come from Buffalo, Syracuse, and the southern tier and on occasion we get a group that makes the drive up from Erie, PA. My team mate for this event is none other than Sinistermind. Sinistermind and I are both ardent followers of chaos so it was natural for us to run a dual chaos list. One of the stipulations for this event is that each team must use one of the 4 pre-defined Force Organization charts. For my FOC I'll be running the 2 Fast Attack choices and Sinistermind will be running the 2 Heavy choices.

Here is a breakdown of my list:
Chaos Lord with jump pack, MoK, Burning Brand, Axe of Blind Fury, Melta Bombs, Sigils
3 Terminators, Champ has PA, other two have power mauls, all three have combi-meltas
10 Marines, champ with PF, 2xPlasma Guns, VoLW, Rhino
8 Raptors - Flamer, Melta Gun, MoK
Heldrake - Baleflamer
5 Havocs - Champ, 4xAutocannons

Sinistermind's list is something like:
Typhus
32 Zombies - Champ
32 Zombies - Champ
4 Spawns - MoN
Defiler
2 Obliterators - MoN

The idea behind this list is that my units will be the hammer to his anvil. In theory my list is designed to be highly mobile and will target threats such as vehicles or other troop choices while his 2 zombie hoards are there to hold/contest objectives and/or tarpit the opponents big units. The obliterators and defiler are there to provide strong, long ranged firepower to where it is needed and the spawn run up where needed.

We have played two practice games so far and we've managed to eek out two wins. The zombie hoards are nothing to laugh at as I've seen them tie up a maulerfiend for an entire game and plus the re-rolls typhus or the zombie champ get during a challenge due to the zombies cheering them on helped typhus take out one of the space wolf lords in a challenge in another game.

The only gamble we are taking in our list is not taking the aegis defense line with the AA gun. Our only AA will be the Heldrake but at 1000pts per FOC I don't think we'll be seeing more than 1-2 other flyers in our matches. Look for post game reports and pictures in the coming weeks.

hyv3mynd (back again) ~ Sorry for any formatting failures, it was a lot of copy/pasting to coordinate the article.  We'll work on improving the process for future collaborations.  In the meantime, let us know what you think and place any wagers on which team will place highest.